The Last Hunter - Collected Edition (26 page)

4

Teeth snap above my head as I slide through the grass beneath Alice. She can’t bend over fully to the ground without toppling forward, and I’m not about to actually collide with a creature whose left arm weighs the same as me. As the massive cresty matriarch stomps past, I thrust Whipsnap up, intending to eviscerate the beast. I’d be covered in blood and entrails, but it would end the fight.

Unfortunately, Alice’s underbelly is shielded by thick, dense skin that Whipsnap’s blade can’t pierce. I leave a long scratch across her lower abdomen, but nothing more.

Alice wastes no time and follows her charge with a tail strike. The giant dinosaur manages to do this so quickly that I barely have time to jump up and over it. If not for the wind carrying me higher, I would have certainly been struck.

Of course, being hit by her tail is preferable to being eaten. Before I’ve landed, Alice lunges. Her jaws open wide to receive my small body. I land a moment before she arrives and throw Whipsnap at her, accelerating the weapon with a gust of wind.

As Whipsnap enters her mouth, the jaws snap shut. For a moment I think the blade might have pierced the back of Alice’s throat, perhaps even reached her brain. But then the beast yanks her head to the side and tosses Whipsnap away.

I slide on my climbing claws knowing that the blades are not long enough to do any real damage, but they’re the only weapons I have left. Granted, I could rain hail down on the beast, but the effort would exhaust me. I’d be open to attack from the twelve other cresties, not to mention Kainda, who, while wounded, is no doubt still dangerous. I catch a glimpse of her sliding through the grass toward her hammer.

Alice charges. I match her again. But this time I leap. Her head drops down to meet me, and when her jaws open, I know her view is obstructed. She’ll wait until she feels my body in her mouth before she clamps down. That’s not going to happen this time, though. The wind carries me up and over her head, which passes just inches below me. I reach out with my clawed hands, find her neck and latch on.

The razor sharp teeth on my climbing claws bite into the skin of her neck. My body slams down as Alice rears up, but I wrap my legs around her and squeeze, locking my feet on the other side. I am stuck to her like a parasite.

Alice roars with a fury I have not yet heard from her, or any cresty before her. My presence, so close, disturbs her. For a moment, I wonder if she’s as bad as I’ve made her out to be. Would she respond so violently to me were my scent and red hair not so tainted by the Nephilim corruption? There’s no way to know.

What I do know is that if I don’t kill her, she will kill me. And then the Nephilim will win for sure. Not that I’ve done anything to stop them. My incessant fear of facing them again has kept me prisoner here for so long already.
Why
? I wonder. I can face down a thirty foot dinosaur, but not the Nephilim.
What am I so afraid of
?

My pondering nearly gets me killed. Alice bucks like a rodeo bull and for a moment, my hands slip free. Snapping back to the problem at hand, I reach higher and stab my climbing claws into Alice’s neck. I then loosen my legs and pull myself up. For fifteen seconds, while Alice flails about in an attempt to shake me off, I pull myself higher, toward her head and snapping jaws…and sensitive eyes.

Sensing my impending attack, Alice slams her head and neck into a tree. The tree falls, but not before knocking me senseless. I feel myself slip a little, but I tighten my grip before falling. Having felt my loosened grip, Alice repeats the technique, but misses the mark, slamming the tree over with her snout instead of my head.

As she lines up the next strike, I can see it will be more accurate. A voice shouts to me before I can brace for the impact.

“Ull!”

It’s Kainda.

I look toward her and see her hammer flying through the air at me. For a moment I suspect she is trying to kill me, too, but the trajectory of the hammer’s flight reveals otherwise. She is arming me. We are working together.

For the moment.

Alice begins her strike.

I let go with my feet, place them on the back of her neck, and leap.

Alice hammers the tree over and then looks about, no doubt wondering if she’s knocked me free.

Above her, I catch the hammer. It weighs far more than I was expecting—
how on Earth can Kainda wield such a weapon
—but I put everything I have into controlling it. I line up my strike as I descend and put all of my strength into the blow.

The connection is solid. Stone and bone collide. The impact shakes my arms and the hammer falls free. But the damage is done. Alice falls limp, her skull crushed beneath the weight of Kainda’s miniature replica of Thor’s hammer, Mjöllnir.

I land in the grass next to the giant cresty, breathing heavily. Alice, however, doesn’t breathe at all.

My enemy is dead.

I know I should cheer or shout some kind of victory whoop, but with the fight over, Ull’s personality has gone missing. All that’s left is Solomon. I place my hand on the giant’s side and tears form in my eyes. She wanted nothing more than to kill me, but she was a force of nature. Killing her seems wrong somehow.

“You weep for your prey?” Kainda says, scoffing.

“I respected her,” I say.

“She was a beast.”

“And yet she was your better.”

I look at Kainda, still lying in the grass. She glowers at me, but does not argue. She knows it is true. The cresty defeated her. If not for my intervention, Kainda would be dead.

“Her ilk may yet kill us both,” Kainda says.

When the first of the remaining twelve cresties, a twenty foot male, steps around Alice’s motionless form, I realize she might be right. The male is followed by the others, which form a partial ring around us. I could run. They’ve given me the opportunity. But it would mean leaving Kainda behind.

I’m tempted once again to leave and let the cresties solve that problem, but I can’t have killed Alice for nothing. I am here to save Kainda’s life, like it or not, and that’s what I intend to do—

The male steps toward me.

—if I can.

I look for Whipsnap and find it twenty feet away. With a focused blast of air, I can bring the weapon back to me or send it flying into the neck of the male cresty. But I pause. Something about this cresty is different. Cresties shriek while hunting. They bare their teeth like wolves. They snip at each other in anticipation of the kill.

None of that is on display here.

The male steps slowly forward again, lowering its head. For a moment, I fear it will pounce, but then I see its eyes, turned down to the ground.

Subservient.

I hear Kainda gasp behind me. She sees it too.

I step toward the beast and its head lowers even further, hovering below my chest. We’re only five feet apart now.

Do they fear me now?
I wonder. Have I become the pack leader by killing Alice? It makes sense in a strange underworld kind of way, but I don’t think that’s what’s going on. I think…I think I’m being thanked.

During my time here I’ve watched Alice rule over this place like a ruthless despot. Everything, both prey and family alike, feared her. And now she’s gone. The queen overthrown.

I step forward again and reach out a hand, placing it on the dinosaur’s snout. It looks me in the eyes and I realize I have made several more friends today. “I’ll call you…Grumpy,” I say, naming the dinosaur for the Tyrannosaurus Rex in
Land of the Lost
that constantly fought with Alice the Allosaurus. “Go, enjoy your giant goats.”

When I smile, Grumpy stands tall, lets out a roar and turns away. The pack charges into the jungle without looking back. When they’re gone, I turn to Kainda and find her wide eyed and stunned. The expression makes her look human—kind even—and for a moment I get a glimpse of what Ull sees in her. But the spell is broken by her words.

“You have made a pact with our sworn enemies.”

I laugh. It’s a silly thing to say really, though I suppose not to someone who has never known anything outside of the harsh subterranean hunter culture. Realizing that Kainda has never known anything else, I picture her being broken as a child and steeped in a culture of hatred and combat. Had she grown up in the outside world, she might have been an artist or a songwriter. She might have worn pretty dresses and smelled flowers, and laughed. Really laughed.

But she didn’t. She doesn’t even know those things exist.

I pity her.

A single cautious step toward Kainda is all I’m allowed before she takes up a defensive posture. “I’m not going to hurt you,” I say.

She doesn’t trust me.

“I just saved your life.”

Her face remains rigid, her hands bent into claws ready to strike.

“Fine,” I say. “But I’m leaving you here.” I point to the bluff that was my home for the past few months. “There is a ledge over there. Thirty feet up. You’ll be safe there if you can reach it. You left a scent trail, yes? For the others to follow?”

She doesn’t answer, but I know she did. “They’ll find you sooner or later. Though it might take some time for you all to find the way out.”

I pick up her hammer. Alice’s blood drips from its surface. “But I don’t think they’ll attack you while you carry this.” I toss the hammer to her and she catches it. She’s confused by my kindness, most likely because she’s never experienced anything like it before.

“Why are you doing this?” she asks.

I stare at her for a moment, asking myself the same question. Is it because she’s beautiful and some part of me wants to be with her? Is it because she’s Ninnis’s daughter and I feel a lingering obligation to serve him? I determine it’s neither of those things. The realization that these people have been corrupted by an evil beyond their comprehension breaks my heart. They are slaves who believe they are free. They’re blind and they don’t know what they’re doing. Not really.

So like Ninnis before her, I have decided to forgive her. And I tell her as much. “Because I forgive you.”

“Forgive?”

She’s never heard the word before. I quote the dictionary in response. “To grant pardon for or remission of an offense. To cease to feel resentment against an enemy.” I add a personal touch, saying, “I choose to love someone despite all of the awful things they have done.”

She whispers the word “love” to herself and looks down at the grass. I can see she’s lost in thought, but part of me can’t help wonder if she’s trying to delay me so that the others might arrive before my escape.

I snatch up Whipsnap, enter the jungle and sprint for the lake before she even realizes I’m gone.

5

The waterfall that constantly flows into the cavern creates a steady breeze and carries scents down from the tunnel high above. I sometimes catch whiffs of creatures lurking high above, some known, some unknown. As I approach the lake and feel the waterfall’s mist on my face, I smell something foreign.

I pause at the edge of the trees, testing the air like a dog, sniffing quickly. The scents are new, but without a doubt, human. The hunters are approaching. Judging by the number of different scents, there are six of them.

I look up and see nothing. They haven’t reached the waterfall’s edge yet. But they will soon. The hunters are most likely following Kainda’s scent trail. Thanks to the flow of water and wind it generates, they won’t get my scent until they’ve entered the cavern. When that happens, they’ll smell me, Kainda and cresty blood. For a moment I fear they will assault the dinosaur pack, but no, with me so close, they won’t waste the time. They’ll give chase.

With Whipsnap attached to my belt, I run for the water. Gloop is there and barks at my approach, urging me faster. The seal can smell the hunters, too. I dive in, doing my best not to create a splash, and I swim out toward the rest of the pod. Apparently, I’m not fast enough for Gloop’s liking. He gets under me and when I hold on to his neck, he puts his flippers to work and my speed through the water doubles.

As we get closer to the pod, they turn and head for the waterfall. The waterfall’s roar fills my ears as we near it and I can now taste the hunters in my mouth. They must be standing in the water above us. I look up and see something I hadn’t noticed before. A rope, dark and wet, dangles next to the falling water. This is how Kainda entered the chamber, and how the other hunters will soon follow. The pod reaches the waterfall before Gloop and me, and one by one they start slipping beneath the water. I sense we’re going to follow and take three quick breaths. Then we’re underwater. Not deep, maybe twenty feet. I look up and see the waterfall roiling the water. And then we’re beyond it, sliding into darkness. We speed forward as strong flippers and a fast current accelerate our passage.

I’m blind now, which is a strange feeling, because I’ve grown accustomed to life underground. Then I remember that I’ve been living in a well lit cave for a long time. My eyes will have to adjust to the darkness again.

Spots emerge in the black and at first I think there must be glowing crystals or bioluminescent algae in this submerged tunnel, but when my chest begins to ache I realize that I’m close to losing consciousness. I tighten my grip on Gloop’s neck and he seems to sense my panic. The water pulses past me as we push forward. The seal’s back arches beneath me and our speed increases again.

Then we’re free of the water. I gasp several times, sucking in fresh air.

I loosen my grip on Gloop’s neck and give him a few gentle pats on his head. “Thank you, my friend.”

The cavern is dark, lacking any sort of light. Happily, I haven’t totally lost my night vision and I can make out the vague shape of the place. I’m still nearly blind, but at least I’m not immobilized.

I climb out of the shallows and onto a smooth, stone shore. The underground river flows past, curving through the small chamber and exiting through another tunnel. For a moment, I wonder if this is merely a pit stop for air, but the pod is already moving on, following the flow. Gloop slides away from me, staring into my eyes.

Then he glances beyond me. I turn and find a small tunnel, just big enough for me to crawl through. When I look back, my mammalian protector is gone.

“What’s the rush?” I say aloud, but a scent carried on the water entering the chamber answers my question.

The hunters are still near. And if their scent has made it here, they have reached the lake. A dreadful thought occurs to me. I was stuck in that cavern for so long because the elusive exit was unknown to me. But the men and women hunting me have lived in the underworld for some time. They know these tunnels even better than the Nephilim, who are too large to fit. They won’t have to look for the exit, they’ll already know where it is! Not only that, they’ll know where it leads, and if they are physically unable to follow through the water, they might very well know where this route will take me. They’ll have no trouble escaping the chamber using the rope.

I dive for the small tunnel, slipping inside the tight crag and pulling myself through the Earth like a worm. I’m only one hundred feet in when I hear a disturbance in the water behind me. They’re here! They’ve found me.

I move as quickly and quietly as I can. At this range, my scent is impossible to mask. They know I’m close. But I don’t want them to know
how
close.

A scraping sound fills the tunnel behind me and I wonder why they’re not trying to mask their presence better. I test the air and smell only one distinct scent. Only one of the hunters is giving chase. The others must be searching the cavern while this one moved ahead, just in case. I glance back and see something sliding through the tunnel, moving like a snake. It’s an amazing technique for moving through the underworld, and if I don’t keep moving, I will be caught by this snake man long before I reach a larger tunnel where I can put my feet to good use.

After ten more minutes of scurrying through the small tunnel, I can hear my pursuer’s breath behind me, each one a hiss as though he’s determined to play the role of a snake. Just when I think he’s close enough to reach out and snare my ankle, the tunnel opens up. I stand and sprint, confident that my stride can outmatch his slither.

When I hear the pads of his feet slapping the stone behind me, it’s clear that he’s also a faster runner than I am. He’s going to catch me.

I focus on the air behind me and imagine it surging back. My hair billows around my head as a gust of wind surges past me, but does not affect me. The man behind me, however, is struck full force. I hear a grunt, and the sound of a body hitting stone. My defensive strike worked, but only momentarily. The sound of feet slipping on stone returns a moment later.

Hunters only give up when they’re dead. Ninnis told me that once. But I don’t kill people. Animals? Yes, though only for food or in self-defense. Nephilim? Absolutely. People? I can’t do it. Not even in self-defense. It just feels…wrong. So I’ll have to immobilize this hunter somehow.

The tunnel floor disappears beneath my feet and I fall forward. My instincts generate a gust of wind beneath me, and it saves my life. I twist my body around a large rib bone that would have skewered me if not for the wind, and I land on my feet.

Glowing crystals pock the cave wall, helping me see. I’m surrounded by bones, some larger than my entire body. There are cresty skulls, albino goat horns, and an assortment of limbs, and bodies, many of which I do not recognize. And most of them are large. I run around a pile of bones, looking for a way out and I’m faced with a cavern, the enormity of which I cannot fathom. It’s like seeing the Grand Canyon in reverse. The floor stretches out past the horizon where I see what looks like white mountains. I take out my telescope as I run and take a peek.

The mountains are
bones
. They’re everywhere, even beneath my feet, where I suspect the powdery white dust coating the floor is pulverized bone.

Before I can ponder this mystery I hear a rattle and grunt behind me, and I know that the hunter has lunged. I dive to the side, roll and yank Whipsnap from its place on my belt. My weapon twangs into place, clutched in both of my hands.

The hunter stands ten feet away, no weapon in sight. He’s tall, at least seven feet. That’s big for a hunter. But he’s also incredibly lean. I look at his skin. He is pale, like me, like all hunters, but there is a strange sheen to his skin, almost reflective. His face is hidden behind a black veil that looks like it’s actually been pinned to his forehead.

Hoping to get some hint of who I’m dealing with, I ask, “Who is your master?”

“I have no master.”

No master? How can a hunter not have a master?

We circle each other. I feel Ull at the fringe of my consciousness, ready to take over when the attack is pressed. And I’m grateful for his presence.

“Why do you hide your face?” I ask.

“I am shunned.”

He feints an attack and my blade keeps him at bay.

“You are a hunter?” I ask.

“No, but I will be when I bring you back.”

“What are you now?”

“A tracker.”

This creature being a tracker makes no sense. Hunters are expert trackers. We can sense things in the underground that no one else can. Our sense of sight isn’t hampered by the dark. And we can hear and smell things few others can.

A bit of Ull emerges, scoffing at his claim. “How can you track better than a hunter?”

Because I can follow your thoughts
.

The voice is in my head!

My foe reveals himself, pulling the veil up over his head. His face is white and noseless. In some ways he reminds me of a gatherer, egg shaped head, almond-shaped oversized eyes and a small slit for a mouth. But his eyes are not solid black, they’re bright yellow with a black, cat-like slit for a pupil. That’s when I see his skin for what it is—scales. White scales, which combined with the yellow eyes is similar to the seekers, a class of Nephilim closely related to gatherers.

Your escape route is admirable, Ull. Bold. The others will not follow you here. But you did not count on me.  I am Xin and I will be your undoing.

A pressure builds in my head as he stares at me. It keeps me from pondering
why
the others won’t follow me here. I push back, but find the effort far more painful. He’s in my head, searching my thoughts.

His small lips turn up. I can hear him laughing in my head.
You are not Ull at all!

He digs deeper.

Solomon? That is your name. Solomon Ull Vincent.

I see what he sees. My past replayed for his amusement. My youth. My parents. My kidnapping. Ninnis breaking me. Me saving Ninnis’s life. Then Kainda’s. But he has failed to see the only memory I fought to block: Aimee. If he learned about her, they would no doubt threaten her life to bring me in. And it would work.

So full of compassion. Your forgiveness is your weakness.

The pain bursts inside my head and I fall to one knee.

Xin charges.

I do the only thing I can. I let Ull loose.