The Last Hunter: Collected Edition (Antarktos Saga #1-5)

I tread water for five minutes, holding him in my arms like he’s my child. In death, with his features relaxed, I realize that’s what he is. True, he’s not much younger than I am, but I’m still a child, too. Neither of us should be here.

“I’m sorry,” I say to the dead boy. “You deserved better.”

With tears in my eyes, I slide my arms out from under his body and watch him slip back beneath the surface of the lake. While I didn’t physically kill Riodan, it still feels like his death could have been averted. If I had faced him, and immobilized him, he would have never chased me. If I had subdued him I might have actually been able to talk some sense into him.

But I chose to run. Someone has died because of my cowardice.

I want to promise myself it will never happen again. That I’ll stand and fight. But I don’t. I’m not Ull. Not a shred of him remains.

I lie back and kick for shore, unable to wipe the image of Riodan’s dead face from my mind. It is an image that will haunt me for the rest of my life, however long, or short, that might be.

At least I’m not completely useless. Free from the chase and back in familiar territory, I regain my senses and apply some underworld wit to my situation. My face is barely above the water as I swim on my back. I’m able to breathe through my nose and leave a negligible wake behind me. I kick with my feet underwater, moving silently across the lake. A hunter would have to be looking directly at me through a spyglass to see me. And even then, I wouldn’t look like anything more than one of the Weddell seals.

When I reach the shore without incident, I’m flooded with relief. I’ve been here before. I know the way to the surface. But I’m unsettled again when I look up and see the ruins of New Jericho.

From where I stand, nothing has changed. Twenty foot ruins of massive walls surround the city. One of several sixty foot gates remains standing. Beyond is a grotto of temples, bastilles and obelisks that dwarf the grandest human structures of the ancient world. A ziggurat stands at the center of it all, stretching up toward the ceiling. Half way up, you could stare Behemoth in the eye.

Maybe Behemoth destroyed the city? I wonder. Imagining the event brings a smile to my face. I miss watching Godzilla.

I cut through the city heading for the still standing gate where I first encountered the Nephilim, Ull, whose name I share. I’d never seen a Nephilim before and took him for a statue. He was larger than life and terrified me—terrified “little” Ull, whose personality was dominant at the time. I fled and his laughter chased me through the underworld. That same passage down which I fled will carry me from this city once more.

As I wander through the city, sniffing for the scent of hunters but smelling only dust, I look at its grand balustrades and wonder how much of human history was influenced by the Nephilim. I see bits of Egyptian and Mayan in the stone work. Despite the ruined state of them, the statues almost look Roman. I pass a black obelisk that looks like it belongs in St. Peter’s Square and I stop in my tracks.

A thirty foot statue stands in an open courtyard.

But this statue isn’t like the others. It’s new.

My heart twitches for a beat. Maybe it’s not a statue at all! But the hair is gray, not red. The whole thing is stone gray. As I approach the back side of the statue, I recognize its form and check it for life one more time. I stand still and silent for a full minute. When I’m finally satisfied that it will not spring to life and devour me, I wander around to the front of the statue and look up into the frozen face of my former master. He stands tall, looking out over the city, his trademark bow in his hand, a quiver of arrows on his back and a cresty skull over his head—the head through which I stabbed one of those giant arrows.

An inscription at the base reads: Here lies Ull, son of Thor, son of Odin. Beloved by Asgard, but devoted to New Jericho, his home, his charge, his resting place.

The genuine sentiment of the inscription makes no impression on me. Instead, I focus on the first two words: Here lies…

I look down at the fresh, brown, stone cobbles beneath my feet and realize I am standing on Ull’s grave. The thought of being close to that monster, even in death, is more than I can bear. I run from the city, hearing his laughter in my mind, feeling it as keenly as I did when I first encountered him.

When I reach the cavern wall outside the city and locate the crack through which I previously escaped, I dive inside. I wail with fear as I scramble to safety like a mouse burrowing away from a cat. Thirty feet inside the tight squeezing earth, I pause and weep.

Crybaby.

The word comes to me like a distant voice.

“Shut-up,” I say.

Crybaby.

“Shut-up!”

With a gasp, my crying stops. The voice is gone now, but I suddenly recognize its source.

Ull. He’s trying to escape.





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