The Last Hunter - Collected Edition (94 page)

9

“You said we were hundreds of feet underground.” Mira glances around the dull blue cavern. I can see a good distance in far less light than this, but she probably can’t see more than fifty feet, which is probably disconcerting. “Is something down here with us?”

“Actually,” I say, “it’s above us, and I’m pretty sure it’s still a ways off. Hold on.”

I close my eyes and focus on the stone around me. A shiver runs through my body as I allow myself to feel the Earth itself. Strata of stone, veins of water and shifting air. Then a footstep. I feel the compression. Massive. Water is squeezed down through the ground. The air in the cavern shifts. The weight is immense.

As I expand my senses, I hear Mira speaking to Kainda.

“What is he doing?” Mira asks.

“I’m not really sure. He can...feel the land.”

“Can he see through it?”

“If the land had eyes, maybe,” Kainda says. “It’s like the Earth becomes an extension of his body. He experiences the changes on Antarktos the way we might on our skin or in our bodies.”

Listening to Kainda’s surprisingly accurate description of what I’m doing, I start to lose focus and drift back to the cavern, but not before feeling the thunderous impact of a hundred thousand more feet.

“So that’s how he’s able to control the elements?” Mira asks. “Because he’s part of them?”

“Something like that,” Kainda says.

I return to my body with a gasp, shifting the women’s attention immediately to me.

“What is it?” Kainda asks.

“I’m not sure,” I say. “But I think it’s an army. I couldn’t tell how many, but some...” I shake my head, trying to comprehend the weight I felt compressing the layers of Earth. “They’re so big.”

As though punctuating what I’ve said, the ground shakes. A rumble rolls past, and I suspect the distant sound is reaching us thanks to the cool underground air—which I can’t feel, but I know the ambient temperature is somewhere around fifty-five degrees—and the acoustics of the solid stone surroundings.

When the rumble fades, Mira asks, “How far away are they?”

“Ten miles to the East,” I reply. “Give or take a mile. Feeling through the continent isn’t exactly a science.”

“Ten miles, and we’re
feeling
their footsteps?” Mira looks mortified, but then she wipes the fear away and replaces it with determination. “Do I need to guess where they’re headed?”

I shake my head, no. “The FOB. We might have a week, tops.”

“We need to take a look,” Mira says.

This catches me off guard. “What?”

“Recon,” Mira says. “You know, ‘know your enemy.’ It’s what Wright would do. If we know what’s coming, we’ll be better prepared for it.”

She’s right, it is what Wright would say, but I would still argue. “Yeah, but if we take the time to look, we won’t reach the base with much time to prepare anything.”

“I agree,” Kainda says.

I nod. “Thanks.”

Kainda raises an eyebrow at me. “Not with you. Reaching the others a few days sooner will not change anything.”

“It will give them hope,” I counter, though I’m not just talking about Mira. Strangely, I’m referring to the effect my presence will have.

“It does not matter when hope arrives,” Kainda argues. “Only that it does in time. Emilie and Kat will have our forces as prepared as they can be.”

When I still look unsure, Kainda says, “Perhaps that is why Emilie is called Faith.”

It is really hard to argue my point when Kainda is invoking the wisdom of an angel, but even harder when she is acting so differently. Mira’s news about Thor’s demise has truly given Kainda hope. She’s been transformed by it.

I relent with a nod. “Fine. But we’re going to have to move fast.” I turn to Mira. “Can you keep up?”

Mira crosses her arms. “In case you missed it, I ran a race to the geographic pole of Antarctica.”

It’s true. She did. Which is impressive, and she’s obviously in good shape. Despite everything she’s been through—the race, the battles with Nephilim, killing Enki and being taken by the shifter, and then the gnarly band of mythological creatures. She’s holding up better than I would have guessed. She was always tough, but it’s never easy to tell who can stare down a Nephilim warrior and who can’t. Despite all that, she’s not a hunter, and I need to be honest.

“This will be harder,” I say.

Perhaps thinking I’m just bragging, Mira looks to Kainda, who confirms my statement with a nod and the words, “Hunters are weapons, forged in darkness and agony, and are trained to endure pain beyond imagining. Running for days is a simple thing compared to the tortures endured by most of us.” She glances at me. “Some more than others.”

Mira has blanched a bit.

“But don’t worry,” Kainda says, “We understand the softness of outsiders and have learned what it means to be merciful.”

This doesn’t exactly put Mira at ease, so I translate. “Which is to say, we won’t leave you behind. But, you’re going to have to push yourself.”

The weight of everything Mira has learned in the last hour, including Kainda’s intimidating speech about hunters is no doubt weighing on her, along with the fact that this enemy force is bearing down on the FOB, where her parents are currently located. I’m impressed when I see her set her jaw, straighten her back and declare, “Then I’ll push.”

“I have no doubt,” I say, and reach a hand up toward the ceiling. Five of the blue crystals dislodge and fall before being caught by the air. They swirl around in a circle, joining together one at a time until they’ve been forged into a baseball-sized crystal that’s putting off enough light to see by. When the glowing orb lowers in front of Mira’s stunned face, she smiles.

“Hearing about what you can do is one thing, seeing it...” She shakes her head. “It’s still hard to believe.” She reaches through the column of compressed wind holding the sphere aloft and takes hold of it. “What about you two?”

“We can see in the dark,” Kainda says.

Mira rolls her eyes. “Of course you can.”

“Ready?” I ask of Mira, putting as much seriousness into the single word as I can. A ten mile run through the dark won’t be that bad. She’s clearly run further. It’s what I fear will happen after we’ve arrived at our destination, and the sprint back to the FOB that concerns me.

“Which way are we headed?” she asks.

I point to the East.

Mira looks to the East, takes a deep breath and starts running.

Kainda looks over at me. “She’s brave.”

“Yeah,” I say. “But sometimes the brave are the first to die.”

Kainda’s expression sours for a moment, but then she grins, slugs me in the shoulder and says, “Then we’re all in a lot of trouble.” She sets off after Mira, leaving me alone with my thoughts. But I don’t linger, because if I think for too long, I’ll have to admit that I already know what we’re going to see when we reach our destination.

Only one creature—that I know of—could shake the Earth with such violence.

Behemoth.

10

As we run through the darkness, I realize that my assessment of the Nephilim forces might have been...inadequate. The idea of a behemoth joining the fight had never crossed my mind. Not only because the giant I faced on multiple occasions is now a hollowed out corpse, but I was also under the impression that the remaining two could not be controlled.

It’s Nephil
, I think. If any Nephilim were powerful enough to control the mammoths of the underworld, it’s him. Thankfully, I know that behemoths fear fire, and humans excel at making things burn or explode. If we get back in time, maybe we can have a few jets loaded up and ready to go with napalm.

I nearly laugh at the absurdity of my thoughts. To me it’s been five years since Justin and I blew up a toy volcano with baking soda and vinegar and now I’m plotting to use napalm, which burns at 1,200 degrees Celsius and can literally melt people.

Would probably melt Nephilim, too,
I think,
ring or no ring on their heads.

Before my thoughts of war get too dark, I turn my attention forward, reaching out through the Earth as I run. The tunnel through which we have been traveling rises at a slight grade, bringing us roughly fifty feet nearer to the surface with every mile we travel. Having gone eight miles already, we were within thirty feet of the surface. Every giant behemoth footfall shook dust on our heads. But now the land above is growing steep, rising toward a tall rock formation. At first I thought it was a mountain, but now it feels more like a nunatak—a flat sided tower that might have once been a true mountain, or maybe just all that remains of a vast plain after millions of years of erosion and glacier movement. Basically, it looks like Devils Tower in Wyoming, the one from
Close Encounters of the Third Kind
, but wider or longer. One of the two. Of course, Wyoming is pretty close to the North Pole now. Devils Tower might be the only visible landmark for a hundred miles now.

I focus my attention on our path. It’s a fairly straight natural passageway that might have been formed by runoff from the tower, or from a natural spring. I follow the path as it bends up, its grade growing steeper until…

What is that?

I stub my toe, stumble forward and fall on my face, all before my senses fully return to my body. With a groan, I roll over onto my back and find Mira standing above me. She’s wearing a goofy, one-sided grin. She shakes her head slowly. “Some things never change.”

Kainda steps up next to Mira. “What never changes?”

“The first time I met him, he tripped and fell. Smacked his head on the ground. Thought he was going to cry.”

Kainda smiles. “He was...smaller before.”

I roll my eyes and sit up, pointing a finger at Mira. “I seem to recall you being nicer about it back then.”

“Yeah, but you were all small and pathetic,” Mira says, which gets a snicker out of Kainda. “Now you’re all—” She makes her voice deep and hits her chest with a fist. “—macho and strong. Me Solomon. I ride dinosaurs.”

“That’s it,” I say, focusing on the air around Mira’s head. I compress it, and then flare it out, filling every strand of hair with static electricity.

Now Kainda laughs loudly. “She looks like Zuh!”

Mira raises her hands to her head, feeling the pompom of blond hair.

“And this,” I say, “is how I remember you.”

At first I think she isn’t amused, but she smiles, and then laughs. “If only we had a Polaroid. We could take a new photo.”

I get to my feet. “Someday we will.”

Kainda huffs and pushes past us. “Then he might pine for you again for two years.”

Mira looks at me and whispers, “Was that a joke?”

“It’s hard to tell sometimes, but I think so, yeah.”

“And fix her hair,” Kainda calls back. “The enemy will see her coming a mile off.”

I quickly pull moisture out of the air and direct it to Mira’s hair as a thin mist. She pulls the now damp hair down, but doesn’t tie it back.

“I think you broke the elastic,” she says.

I reach into my pack where I’ve got some feeder-leather string that would work, but I feel something soft. When I remember what it is, I take hold of the fabric and pull it out. She kind of flinches when she sees it.

“Is that?”

I hand the blue bandana to her with a grin. “Your father’s. I found it on top of a wall. Where I think the two of you escaped from a pack of cresties.”

“They nearly got us,” she says, confirming the story.

“It’s how I knew he was back,” I say. “Your father. I didn’t know you were here until later.”

She smells the bandana. “Smells like Vesuvius.”

“Vesuvius?” I’m confused for a moment. The bandana smells like a dog. Then I realize who the dog belongs to. “Of course. Your father’s dog!”

“Did you meet him?” she asks. “He’s a big Newfoundland.”

“I didn’t see any dogs at the FOB,” I say. “But I wasn’t there very long, either.”

“Hey!” Kainda shouts from further up the tunnel. She sounds a little annoyed. “You’re the one who wanted to rush. So—rush!”

She’s right of course. I wait for Mira to tie her hair in place with the bandana, and then we set off up the tunnel, double timing our pace until we rejoin Kainda.

After another mile, the grade increases to the point where even I’m feeling the burn in my thighs.

Mira mutters, “Jane Fonda eat your heart out.”

“No kidding, right?” I say.

Kainda doesn’t get the reference and even if she did, I doubt she’d find it funny. In fact, when I look up and see her legs—the muscles accentuated by a sheen of sweat—I wonder if she’s even fazed by the ascent.

I do a quick reach out with my senses, looking for the aberration that caused me to stumble. It’s just a quarter mile ahead. The tunnel, which is fairly straight, suddenly angles and spirals straight up. I start to follow the path upwards, but then Kainda says. “Up ahead. Look.”

I stop and peer through the dark, at first not recognizing what I’m seeing, but then the sharp angles leap out at me. “That’s unexpected.”

“What is it?” Mira asks. “I can’t see a thing.”

Her orb of blue light allows her to see, but the glow doesn’t come close to reaching the end of the tunnel.

“A staircase,” I say, then use the momentary pause to follow it upwards, through the mountain. It’s just over a thousand feet tall, probably fifteen hundred steps, but the top...isn’t the top. “There’s a chamber.”

“What’s in it?” Mira asks.

I shrug. “I can’t sense things at that level of detail. Only broad pictures. There could be anything inside.”

“Anything living?” Kainda asks.

“I—I can’t tell,” I admit. “All the rumbling footsteps outside are making everything kind of hazy. Either way, up is the only way we’re going.” I head for the staircase and reach it a minute later, pausing at the steps. They’re old and worn, hewn right out of the mountain itself. The steps spiral upwards, straight through the core of the nunatak.

It’s Mira who makes the observation both Kainda and I have missed. “These stairs were made by people.
For
people.”

When the Nephilim build staircases, there are often two sets of stairs, one with four-foot tall steps for the warriors and other large classes, and a smaller set for hunters, gatherers and thinkers. Besides, even without the larger set of stairs, this tunnel was clearly never used by Nephilim. It’s far too small. All this and the fact that Kainda doesn’t know about this place leads me to conclude, “This was built before the Nephilim controlled the continent. Back before it was frozen over!”

My excitement is crushed when a rumble violently shakes the tunnel.

“We should probably get to the top before they bring down the whole place,” Mira says.

With a nod, I lead the way up the staircase, growing dizzy after the first fifty steps, spinning around and around like a human corkscrew. But I don’t really pay the dizziness any heed. Or the growing ache in my legs. Or the rising volume of the thunderous footsteps permeating the stone around us. My thoughts are of what we’ll find at the top, and who built it.