The Last Hunter - Descent (Book 1 of the Antarktos Saga) (18 page)

I focus on recalling this memory. Something about it feels important. Before I can recall anything with clarity, I hear a sound. It’s a gentle scraping, amplified by the echoing tunnel.

Crouching low, I advance. Boulders on the side of the tunnel conceal my approach. I move in silence like Ninnis taught me, keeping three limbs in contact with the stone at all times. Stealth and balance are keys to a successful hunt.

A scent tickles my nose. I suck it in slowly, tasting it. I cannot recognize the specific origin of the odor, but I know it’s blood. A fresh kill. I move closer. The scraping is just on the other side of a tall, obelisk-like stone. I chance a look.

My head pokes into view for the briefest of moments. But in that time I’m able to take everything in. The fresh kill is a large albino centipede, perhaps the size of my arm. Ninnis cooked one once. I have come to enjoy a lot of questionable meals, but the centipede was one of the more revolting. Even Ninnis cringed at its flavor.

The creature atop the death-coiled centipede must lack taste buds entirely, because its head is buried beneath the white exoskeleton shaking back and forth feverishly, devouring the slick insides with abandon. As for the predator, I’m not sure what it is. It’s hunched over, so I can only guess its true height, but it appears to be five feet long with two feet of tail and another two of neck. Its torso is about the size of a cocker spaniel. Its hind legs smack of ostrich, but the claws on its three toes are infinitely sharper. Its forelimbs are short, but dexterous, tipped with tiny hands that grip the centipede carcass. Shiny green skin, perhaps scaled, covers most of the body except for the back, where it is patterned with splotches of maroon. Though I fight the conclusion—it’s beyond imagining—I can’t help thinking that this is a small dinosaur.

How can I see all this?
I wonder. I know there is no light here, but I can make out details like this without problem.
I’ll have to ask Ninnis.
But Ninnis is dead. A question for another time, then.

Right now, it’s time to hunt.

The creature doesn’t see, hear or smell me coming. With its head buried inside the centipede’s gullet, its fate is sealed. Perhaps if the ground was less firm, a vibration from one of my footfalls might give me away. But the cave floor is solid rock.

I approach it from behind, arms tense. My plan is simple and according to Ninnis, the safest way to make a kill. Attack from behind, slice the neck and then retreat while the prey bleeds out. “Many denizens of the underground are equipped with sharp claws and teeth,” Ninnis told me. “And most thrash wildly about as their life comes to a close. Best to distance yourself until the life goes out of them.”

One quick, deep cut and then retreat. The whole attack should take seconds.

But I never get that far.

I hear breathing.

Not mine. Not my prey’s. It’s deep, like the lungs of a large horse.

You fool
, I say to myself. Following Ninnis’s advice on hunting is no good unless I also follow his rules on survival. I paid attention to my prey, but not the world around us. I took its size for granted, assuming it was full grown and never once considering it might be the young of something larger.

Less than a day since Ninnis departed this world and I’m about to join him. He had so much faith in me. I shake my head, determined not to let him down.

I turn to face the new threat while the baby finishes its meal, oblivious to what is going on behind it.

A face stares at me from the shadows, hanging low over a boulder. I can’t see its body, but I sense it is tense, coiled and ready to pounce. The face is colored green, like the baby’s and sports a ruddy splotch shaped like an arrow on its snout, which tapers up from two large nostrils and ends with a large crest behind the eyes. And those eyes hold my attention. Two yellow orbs with black serpentine slits stare back at me.

I hold my breath when the head slides forward, emerging from the shadows. A long neck follows, then two short arms. I call them short, despite each being longer than my arms, but in comparison to its body, which is massive, the arms are disproportionate. I see two crouched hind legs in the darkness and hear its tail swishing back and forth like an agitated cat’s.

Aim for the eyes, I think as it stops only a few feet from my face. It sniffs, taking in my scent with deep breaths. It leans closer, nudging my shoulder as it smells...my hair?

The thing, which is without doubt a living dinosaur, snaps its head back like it’s been slapped in the face. The dinosaur turns its head up and opens its mouth, revealing two rows of needle-sharp teeth, and calls out two quick barks.

Two distant barks reply.

Then four more even further away.

There are more of these things! Many more!

As it brings its head back down, I have no doubt the dinosaur will pounce, so I make the first move. I swing out with an open palm thinking
wax on
, but not recalling the reference. The tips of my climbing claws dig into the beast’s forehead, cutting the flesh until striking the thick bone of its eyebrow and glancing away.

It’s a paltry distraction, but it’s enough.

With a roar, it lifts its head for a moment.

When it lowers again, I am off and running.

Like the young dinosaur, I can’t hear anything as my rushing blood courses past my ears. I suspect it runs as silently as I do, too, because despite the thing’s size (I’d guess twenty feet from snout to the tip of its tail) I still can’t feel any vibrations beneath my feet. I’m breathing too hard to smell anything. And like my mother says, I don’t have eyes in the back of my head.

My mother?

The distraction nearly costs me my life.

The river saves it.

I hit the water and fall down as the dinosaur’s jaws snap shut above me. The water sweeps me away. As the water pushes me downstream and pummels me into stones, I get a look back. The dinosaur has not given up the chase. It pounds through the water behind me.

I see three small tunnels rush by. Each would have provided refuge from the ancient predator. The tunnel ends up ahead and I see the crevice that leads to the waterfall hideaway. I swim for shore, but the current is too strong, and the river bottom is too polished to get my footing.

I pass my salvation in a blur before being sucked underwater. The river tunnel ends in a whirlpool before descending deeper. I’m pulled into it, spinning madly. I can’t see. I can’t breathe. And the pain of my head striking something hard registers for only a moment. As consciousness fades, I think, did I remember my mother? The question is answered by darkness.

22

I regain consciousness underwater. My lungs burn. My head throbs. And all around me, the water rushes. But I don’t panic. I have come closer to drowning and do not fear it. Again, thanks to Ninnis.

Just as I decide to swim with the current, turning my body forward, the river falls out from under me. As I flip, head over heels, I see snapshots of the river, now an endless waterfall, turning into a broad, fine mist next to me. I see water far below, frothing with white where the waterfall meets it. This water stretches out and away further than I can see, but there is a shoreline to the left and something else. Something large.

I focus on the approaching water. I vaguely remember hearing about someone jumping off a bridge into water to kill himself. I’ll reach terminal velocity—one hundred twenty miles per hour—in about fifteen seconds. At that speed the water will feel like solid stone. I’ve been falling for six seconds.

Ten seconds into the fall, there is no more time to calculate. I strike the water, feet first (this saves my life) and plunge deep under water. The impact doesn’t kill me or break any bones, but it does fog my mind nearly to the point of unconsciousness. I must have forgotten to breathe while falling because my lungs scream for air. I know the surface must be near, but in the weightless dark I don’t know which way is up and with my lungs empty, I lack the buoyancy to float.

I’ll float just fine once my dead body fills with gas
, I think.

I swim. I have no choice. But I choose the wrong direction. When my head strikes the hard bottom, I know this for sure. Spots dance in my vision, possibly from lack of oxygen, possibly from the impact. Either way, I’m disoriented.

My body fails me, going limp. My mouth is close to opening. My vision fades. I slide to the bottom, which now feels like a soft cushion and use the last of my energy to clutch my mouth shut. I feel water rushing over me, pulling my hair over my face. And then, once again, darkness claims me.

* * *

I open my eyes and see a rock cut so perfectly at a ninety degree angle that I know it’s manmade. This thought keeps me from closing my eyes again, despite how badly I want to. I’m battered from head to toe. My lungs hurt. Muscles I didn’t know I had cry out in pain. But the carved stone is a mystery my mind cannot ignore.

After squeezing my eyes shut a few times, I can focus beyond what lies right in front of me. I twist my head, turning it down an incline of several more angled cuts. A massive staircase. Each step is four feet deep and just as tall. The stone steps descend into what I can only describe as a lake. It reaches out to the dark horizon which sweeps up and over me, concealing the cavern ceiling that must be a half mile high. Maybe more.

I roll over, sit up and freeze. A pair of black eyes stares at me from the water. Unlike most of the monsters living underground, I recognize this one. It’s a Weddell seal with an unmistakable patchwork of dark brown and beige skin. Exactly how I can identify this creature, I can’t recall, but the only thing that makes me doubt its identity is that we’re far underground.

“How did you get here?” I ask it.

It responds by sliding back into the dark water.

Something about seeing it move triggers a faded memory. Not from my past. This one is recent. The soft bottom of the lake, where I should have drowned. The water rushing past. This out-of-place seal saved my life.

“Don’t go,” I say. As it slips away, I stand and hop down the steps and into the water. But it’s gone before I can reach it. It surfaces again, thirty feet out, rolling on the surface to catch a breath before diving back down. A smile creeps onto my face as eight more humps rise and fall. A family. It’s nice to know not everything in this subterranean world wants to eat me.

Before turning away, I see my dim reflection in the water. I haven’t seen my face in so long, I feel like I’m looking at a stranger. My skin is paper white. The blue around my pupils, which are open wide, has been reduced to a thin line of color. And my hair is streaked dark red. There appears to be as much blond hair as red, but...hasn’t it always been that way?

I tire of looking at my face and haul myself out of the water and onto the lowest step. I then set myself to the task of climbing the steep staircase. Eight steps in all. Thirty-two vertical feet. At the top, I need to stop and catch my breath. I bend over, hands on knees, in through the nose, out through the mouth. Did Ninnis teach me that?

When I stand upright I’m looking at something I would have never thought possible. The staircase is just the beginning of something huge. Something ancient. It can best be described as a temple complex. There are several small step pyramids surrounding a larger, spiraling tower, like a Sumerian ziggurat. Its top is concealed by darkness. Obelisks and statues line the streets, though many are broken. In fact, the place looks like it has been through a war. A few wars, really. The buildings are scarred with gouges and impact craters. A wall that once surrounded much of the site is now a crumbled pile of stones.

As I approach the ancient metropolis I am dwarfed by its scale. Like the four-foot steps, this place was made for, or by, giants. The only standing city gate must be sixty feet tall. The ruined walls, which looked small from a distance are still piled twenty feet high. How tall were they when they still stood? I now know how a mouse feels when it looks at a house. I could disappear inside this place. Hide like a rodent in the nooks and crannies.