Tobias was right. I shouldn’t have let her live. What good is mercy if it leads to evil?
Maybe if I delay things, the father and daughter team will stand a chance. They have trained to fight as a pair. If they can regroup… “How did you find me?”
“Tracking you took some time, I’ll admit,” Ninnis said. “You covered your tracks well. But finding you here, in your little arena. Well, that was easy.” He smiles in a way that says his next words will cause us pain.
I see Kainda’s muscles flex. She knows what he’s about to say and that it will spur a response. I realize what he’s going to say a moment before he speaks and I nearly throw up.
“It didn’t take much,” Ninnis says. “With a little…coaxing, the boy was happy to tell me where you were. But don’t worry, I left him with Pyke and Preeg.” The glint in his eyes says that this is, in fact, something to be very worried about.
“Monster!” Tobias shouts, charging forward despite his wounds.
Em follows his lead, heading for Kainda. She’s half her size, but faster and can attack from a distance. Still, in her current condition and without her knives, I do not expect her to survive the encounter.
And there is nothing I can do!
I try to stand, but my legs are numb.
I reach out to the continent, willing the wind to help, but the effort brings blackness to my vision. At the brink of unconsciousness, I give up.
I am helpless.
All I can do is watch.
Tobias lets his last two arrows fly. Ninnis dodges one, but the other strikes his leg. Had they been actual arrows, Ninnis would have been incapacitated. Instead, he’s just angry. With a roar, Ninnis leaps into the arena.
Kainda follows, raising her hammer above her head and leaping for Em.
The raw ferocity on display by Ninnis and Kainda increases my sense of hopelessness. They are in top form, hunters about to make a kill. Em and Tobias aren’t just wounded, they’re emotionally compromised. Like me. Distracted by the potential fate of poor little Luca.
Em lets a barrage of rocks fly at Kainda, but the Amazonian-like woman simply raises her large stone mallet in front of her face, blocking any strikes that might knock her unconscious, and takes the body blows without flinching. Em dives under her, as Kainda lands, striking the snow where Em stood a moment before. I actually feel the ground shake beneath me from the impact.
Em rolls to her feet, and stands, now weaponless. “Why are you doing this? We were friends once!”
“Hunters do not have friends,” Kainda says, before beginning a series of attacks that puts Em on the defensive.
Tobias and Ninnis meet at the center of the arena, but Tobias gets the upper hand right away. His razor edged bow gives him a reach that Ninnis cannot penetrate. But it quickly becomes apparent that Ninnis is simply playing with the man, dodging each strike easily while his opponent wears himself out. My father called the fighting style the rope-a-dope, a boxing technique used by Muhammad Ali when he would assume a defensive position against the rope and let his opponent pummel him until exhausted and making mistakes. That’s when Ali would strike and bring a quick closure to the match.
That’s what I see happening here, but there is no way to warn Tobias.
With a deep breath, I put my hands beneath me and push. My arms shake, but I manage to reach a kneeling position. The effort has set my head spinning, but it’s progress. I take another breath and prepare to stand.
And that’s when it happens.
Kainda’s long leg penetrates Em’s defenses and catches her in the stomach. Em crumples in pain with a shout.
The sound of his daughter’s pained voice pulls Tobias’s attention away from Ninnis for just a moment. But it’s all the old man needs.
Ninnis steps inside Tobias’s swing and catches his arm. Two quick elbows later, Tobias stumbles back, his face covered in blood from his nose and forehead.
“Father!” Em yells, leaping back to her feet. She tries to run to his aid, but Kainda catches her jacket and throws her against the hard, icy wall of the arena. The wind is knocked out of her again.
I want to shout at Em and Tobias, and tell them to stop thinking about the other. This is what you warned me about! Stop it! Stop caring! Start fighting! But my efforts to stand keep me silent. With a grunt, I find my feet.
But my efforts are far too little and much too late.
Tobias swings at Ninnis despite being blinded by a curtain of red oozing from his forehead. Ninnis snatches the bladed bow, and pulls Tobias in, kicking him hard in the chest. Tobias loses his grip on his weapon and falls back.
There is no banter. No last words. Ninnis is a hunter and he strikes like one.
Without hesitation.
Without mercy.
And with perfect aim.
He leaps into the air, raising the bow above his head, and with a battle cry that turns my stomach sour, plunges the bow into Tobias’s chest. Tobias’s body twitches under the impact. Ninnis twists the blade, and the body lies still.
Tobias is dead.
Revulsion helps me find me voice. “No!” I scream.
But there isn’t time to mourn Tobias’s death. Kainda stalks toward Em where she lies, motionless on the ground. She raises the hammer—a weapon strong enough to crack cresty skulls and shake the very ground. Issuing her own war cry, she brings the weapon down. A loud crunch brings a sob from my mouth.
Kainda picks up Em’s limp body and tosses her hard. Her body skids across the area floor and stops fifty feet away. Motionless.
My surrogate family is dead.
And kidnapped.
And I can’t even avenge their deaths.
But I have to try.
I bend down, head swirling, and pick up Whipsnap.
As Ninnis walks toward me, I hold the weapon between us. But my shaking hands make the defensive posture just look pitiful.
Kainda remains still, watching with crossed arms and downturned lips.
“I saved you,” I say to her. Her frown deepens, but I’m not sure if it’s from guilt or shame at needing to be saved.
I face Ninnis. He’s just ten feet away. “I saved both of you.”
He stops just out of Whipsnap’s reach. “Your life is a series of mistakes, Solomon.”
When he says my name again, I realize I have an opening to put a wedge between these two. “You’ve told her then? That you failed to break me? And that your failure resulted in Ull’s death?”
I see surprise register on Kainda’s face. I turn to her. “I killed Ull. Your father covered it up.”
Ninnis bares his teeth and a growl enters his voice. “Kainda and I have both failed when it comes to you,” Ninnis says. “It is a shame we bear together. And it is a shame we will correct together.”
“You cannot break me again,” I say. I’m not sure if it’s true, but I need him to believe it.
To my surprise, he nods, but then says, “I do not need to break you again. I simply need you to give yourself—willingly—to the spirit of Nephil.”
“Never,” I say.
“Then the boy will be killed.”
My stomach tightens. Luca is alive.
“I will give you seven days to reach the gates of Tartarus. You will come, as Ull.”
“I’m not Ull,” I say.
“Then you must be convincing,” he says. “You will give yourself to Nephil. He will break you himself. And the boy will be spared.” He grins wide, showing his rotting teeth. “You see? I am not without mercy!”
Filled with rage, I lunge, stabbing Whipsnap toward his chest. But my former trainer is fast. He dodges to the side, and in the time it takes me to blink, there is a sword in his hand. Before I have time to contemplate where it came from, he strikes Whipsnap with the flat side of the blade. The tip of the sword wraps around Whipsnap. With a tug, he pulls my weapon from my hands and flings it away.
He holds the sword out toward me. Its blade is once again straight and razor sharp. “Meet
Strike,” he says. “A gift from Enki. And if you do not reach the gates of Tartarus within seven days, Strike will be the source of little Luca’s prolonged and agonizing death.”
Ninnis becomes a blur. I see a flash as Strike coils itself down to the hilt, which then strikes my head. I fall to the ice, staring up at the blue sky above. Ninnis stands over me and says. “Seven days.”
Then he’s gone. I can hear his feet on the snow, walking away. Kainda’s too. Neither of them speaks. They’re just leaving me here, with my dead friends, and a demand I have no choice but to grant. I don’t believe Ninnis will spare Luca, but I can’t leave the boy. I can’t let him be killed. My head lolls to the side and I see Kainda at the top of the arena wall.
She glances back at me, meets my eyes, and shakes her head.
Then she’s gone, along with Ninnis, and Luca.
I picture the boy in the darkness of the underworld, surrounded by killers and monsters and remember what I was like as a six year old. The experience might very well break him.
I shout and try to rise. If I could only regain my strength I might be able to stop them before they disappear into the depths. But my body doesn’t respond. I can’t move. I can’t fight.
I can’t win, I think, so I do the only thing I can do.
I weep.
25
I don’t know if I can move. I haven’t tried. The will to act has abandoned me. I’ve lain in the snow at the bottom of the arena for nearly an hour, watching the sun cut across the sky, feeling its rays burning the exposed skin of my tear-streaked face. I’ve replayed the events surrounding Tobias’s and Em’s deaths, and Luca’s capture a hundred times, looking for a way things could have been different.
The problem is, I find a solution every time. Had I been stronger. Had Ull still been a part of me. If I’d trained harder. If I’d never come here. If, if, if. There are probably a million “what ifs” that could have avoided this situation.
But none of that matters, because it happened. Tobias is dead, killed by his own weapon after I—the memory of that last blast of wind that sent he and Em flying replays in my mind’s eye, over and over. It’s the single “what if” scenario that pains me the most. I shouldn’t have struck them so hard. I shouldn’t have been so focused on winning that I put their lives in jeopardy.
But I did.
And they’re dead.
The sound of snow shifting in the distance tears me away from my self-deprecation.
The wind?
Footsteps slowly approach. The wind doesn’t walk.
I listen to the footfalls coming closer, but don’t move. Maybe it’s a polar bear come to put me out of my misery.
Polar bears live in the Arctic, stupid, I tell myself. This is the Antarctic!
“Solomon?” the voice is weak. Frail. But I recognize it.
I turn toward the shuffling sound, eyes wide. “Emilie?”
She stands five feet away, clutching an arm and covered in blood.
But alive.
“You’re alive,” she says, sounding relieved.
“You’re alive,” I respond. “I thought for sure—”
“Me too,” she says. “What happened?”
The answer to her question stuns me, so much so that I can’t bring myself to say it right away. I force myself into a sitting position. My head pounds for several moments, but then clears.
“Kainda,” she says. “She beat me. Kicked me.” She’s struggling with the memory. “She threw me?”
“She—” Saying the words is hard, not because they’re hurtful, but because they’re hopeful. And I had given up hope. “She spared you.”
As I say it, I know it’s true. Kainda doesn’t let someone live without intending it.
Em looks confused. “She doesn’t do that.”
She’s right. Kainda is a brutal warrior known to hold a grudge and react with swift violence. She is not the forgiving type. But still, here Em stands, injured, but alive.
“You did it,” she says.
I tense, believing that she is accusing me for being the cause of Tobias’s death. A quick glance in his body’s direction confirms his death. The snow around his body is as red as his hair. But Em’s words aren’t accusatory.
“You got through to her,” she says. “Your mercy. It’s the only explanation.”
“You were friends, you said. Couldn’t that be—“
“We trained together. Hunted together. Killed together. She’s older than me. Old enough to be my—”
Em falls silent for a moment, but shakes her head.
“Perhaps it was both of us, then?” I propose.
Em reaches down for me and helps pull me to my feet. Her strength surprises me. Not just her physical strength, but the resolve she is showing in the face of her father’s death. Perhaps it is the hunter in her that won’t allow her to cry by his side, or the need to be strong for Luca. Whatever it is, it is an ability I don’t have. And she sees the evidence all over my face.
She scoops some snow into her hands, cups them together and melts it between her palms. She uses the water to wipe away the salty streaks. Her touch stings my burned flesh, but bring focus to my mind. A realization strikes.
“It’s not just Kainda,” I say.
She pauses. “What do you mean?”
“Ninnis, he…he showed mercy.”
Her hands drop away from my face and some of her buried emotions rise up. Without turning to face her father’s body, she thrusts a finger toward it, acutely aware of where he lies, and shouts, “You call that mercy? My father is dead!”
“He couldn’t let him live,” I say. “Kainda would know.”
“Know what?” Her voice brews with anger and I realize that I better explain quickly or the bond of brother and sister formed between us might be broken. And I’m going to need that bond in the coming days. We both will.
“That he’s different. It’s subtle, but it’s there.”
“Where is it, Solomon?” She’s still shouting. Tears bead at the corners of her eyes. “Where?”
“He gave me seven days to return to Tartarus. I’m to give myself up to Nephil in exchange for Luca’s life.”
She gasps. “You can’t.”
“I must.”
“Nephil will kill everyone, including Luca.”
“I can’t leave him. The point is, Ninnis gave me seven days.”
She stares at me, confused.
“The journey from here to Tartarus, in my condition, and knowing the way, will take four days at most. He’s given me three extra days.”
“For what?”
I look at Tobias’s body and she understands.
“To mourn,” I say. “To bury the dead. To say goodbye.”
It is an act of mercy so subtle that it could easily be missed or explained away, and while I do not expect him to repeat it, or go back on his promise to kill Luca if I do not show, it is shred of hope I will cling to.
I walk on stiff legs to where Whipsnap was flung and pick up my weapon. “We’re going to bury your father. We’re going to bury him today. Right now. Tonight we’ll rest. Tomorrow we’ll begin the journey to Tartarus.”
I don’t question whether or not Em is coming. As much as I’d like her to remain behind, and safe, nothing short of breaking her legs could keep her here.
“Why not rest longer?” she asks. “Regain your strength.”
“That’s exactly what I intend to do.”
“How?” she asks.
“We’re going to make a stop along the way,” I tell her. “To see a friend in Asgard. And in the meantime, I need you to tell me about the ones who helped Tobias escape with Luca. We are going to need all the help we can get.”
She nods, shakes with a chill, and heads for her father’s body.
I follow close behind, feeling bad for my lie of omission. While it’s true that I’m going to see a friend, it is not for strength. It is for a clear conscience. I need to see Aimee again, to apologize and…to
say goodbye.
26
It takes us three hours to bury Tobias. Most of that time is spent carrying his body back to Clark Station One. Digging a grave proved impossible—the ice is thick and dense—so I used my abilities to carve out a six foot deep hole. We wrapped him in a blanket along with his bow and arrows. I used the wind to carry him down into the grave, where he now lies.
We stand there, side by side, Emilie and I, staring down at the body. I’ve been to four funerals in my life, for each of my grandparents. I remember the words spoken at each one—comforting words, often about being reunited in the afterlife. None of it seems appropriate now, so I stay silent. Em has never been to a topside funeral before, so the ritual will probably just confuse her. There is one part I always appreciated, though. The prayer. Speaking to God. Asking Him to accept the spirit of the deceased into Heaven. A better place. Certainly better than here. Tobias deserves as much.
I bow my head, close my eyes and whisper a prayer to God. “I don’t know much about you, but I know a lot about Tobias. He was a good man. He gave his life in defense of innocence. And he was an enemy of the Nephilim, who, if demons are real, and you are real, are your enemies, too. Give him a new home, please. A better home.”
Em’s fingers find mine and we grip each other’s hands.
“Protect Luca, wherever he is. Keep him safe and never let him doubt that we are coming for him. Protect Em, and me, as we attempt to get him back.”
With my thoughts on the task before us, I say, “If possible, turn Kainda to our side, and…” My next words feel wrong for a moment, but then I remember that there is plenty of smiting in the Bible. God will understand. “Destroy our enemies. Kill them all. Please. Amen.”
I open my eyes and find Em looking at me, her face wet with tears already wiped away.
“What were you doing?” She asks.
“Praying,” I say. “It’s something people do at funerals. When we bury the dead.”
“But who were you talking to?”
The Last Hunter - Pursuit (Book 2 of the Antarktos Saga) Page 13
