The Last Hunter - Ascent (Book 3 of the Antarktos Saga) Read Online Free PDF Page B

His eyes lock on me. “You.” He’s quick to his feet and I notice that unlike me, Ull is strong. Very strong. All sinewy with muscle and taut skin. His face is covered in stubble. While I retained all of my mental abilities, he retained our physical prowess. While we’re both clearly dealing with emotions, Ull was never good at controlling his and the weight of this place must be crushing him—pushing him deeper into madness, to the point where he wants to kill me.
    “You can’t kill me,” I say. “We’re in Tartarus.”
    His eyes dart around again. He’s trying to understand, but I suspect he’s too far gone.
    When he turns his head toward the sky and lets out a Nephilim howl, I know I’m right. He opens his hands, hooks his fingers into talons and charges. He’s weaponless, dressed only in ragged leathers, but he’s far quicker than I am. The best I can do as he closes the distance is raise my hands up.
    Our hands collide first. Fingers entwine. A moment of resistance is followed by the tearing of flesh as his hands push down hard on the three blades of the climbing claws. He screams as the blades slip through flesh and bone before poking out from the back of his hands.
    Then our bodies collide and I’m slammed into the stone wall behind me. My head collides with the wall and I hear a crack. I’m dazed, but conscious, and still pushing against Ull’s arms with everything I’ve got. His strength has been sapped by the pain of the teeth piercing his hands, but he’s still more than a match for me.
    He roars at me, coating my face with spittle and blood. His mouth is bleeding. He must have bitten his tongue when we collided , I think. I feel pain in my mouth for a moment. Why am I worried about him? He’s trying to kill me! “Get off me!” I scream.
    “Die!” he shouts back. “Must die! Kill!”
    I twist my hands, shifting the blades buried in his flesh.
    He screams and then spews a few indiscernible lines.
    My lips begin to quiver. Tears drip from my eyes. I’ve seen what he did to the small creatures. The pain he is about to inflict on me will be beyond comprehension. My arms weaken. “Please,” I say. The word sounds more like a whimper. “Why are you doing this?”
    “No!” he shouts. “No, no, no! Choice!”
    No choice?
    He doesn’t want to kill me.
    He didn’t want to kill those creatures.
    My arms lose the battle and slap back against the stone over my head. He’s in my face now, his teeth chattering. He’s going to bite me. I can see it in the way his head is turning. He’s going to bite my nose off! But he’s fighting it. Resisting.
    “You can stop!” I shout back.
    “C—can’t!” His desperation matches my own. I’m shocked to see tears in his eyes, too. He doesn’t want to hurt me. I am him. We are each other. And he’s anything but self-destructive. “Need!”
    His mouth opens, baring his teeth just inches from my nose. “Need!” he screams again.
    I’m too terrified to speak now. The true pain of Tartarus is about to begin.
    “Need…help!”
    Help.
    The word flashes into my mind.
    Help.
    I beheld in my dream, that a man came to him, whose name was Help.
    I’m not the burdened traveler, I realize. I…am Help. Ull is in the Slough. But how can I help him?
    Christian sank in the Slough of Despond because it amplified the burden he carried. The weight of the darkness of his heart overpowered him. I think about the awful things I’ve done. Most…were Ull. The weight on his shoulders must dwarf mine.
    Escape from the Slough only came with Help’s aid. Give me thine hand: so he gave him his hand, and he drew him out.
    I look at our hands, bound by bone and blood.
    The same blood.
    The same burdens.
    They do not belong to Ull alone. They are ours to bear.
    I clench my fingers around Ull’s hands, pulling him closer.
    His head snaps back like he’s been slapped in the face. “What are you doing?”
    We look at our hands, no longer bound by fingers and bone, but