The Last Hunter - Lament (Book 4 of the Antarktos Saga) Read Online Free PDF Page B

covers the distance between her hand and Pan’s forehead. The blade buries itself up to the hilt in the soft spot.
    Like a marionette with its strings cut, the giant collapses to the floor.
    Dead.
    I quickly release my control of the wind and allow the stone floor to revert to its previous state. All trace of my involvement has been erased. Anyone who finds the scene later on might assume the prisoners got loose and got the better of Pan.
    As cheers erupt around me, I fall to one knee, exhausted from the effort. Not wanting the soldiers watching me to see my moment of weakness, I close my eyes and bow my head, as though in prayer.
    And then I am. “Thank you,” I whisper. It’s only the second time I’ve ever prayed. The first was at Tobias’s funeral. This time is short and sweet, and though I’m not entirely sure who I’m speaking to, I’m pretty sure the message is received. My energy returns and I stand again to more uproarious cheering. For my coup de grâce, I raise a hand, silencing the prisoners. I reach out with my mind, feeling the air, the stone and the metal of the locks. I focus on the molecules binding the iron together, and slowly push them apart.
    “My name is Solomon Ull Vincent. I am the leader of...” What am I the leader of? A small band of hunters? No, it’s more than that. The world may not yet know it, I’m the leader of , “...the human resistance. And you,” I say, looking at the men around me, “are free.”
    I clench my hand shut and the locks all up and down the hallway snap free and fall to the floor.
     

 
     
     
    6
     
    The soldiers emerge from the cages slowly. There’s a palpable sense of bewilderment as they try to comprehend the things they’ve seen here. Not just Pan and my unnatural abilities, but the ease with which Wright and Em killed the giant that had made their lives a living hell. How many of them had he taken , I wonder. But before I can ponder the question, a wave of dizziness spins my vision.
    Setting the men free with one bold act, while impressive, has further drained my strength. Struggling to stay on my feet, I take Wright’s arm. Sensing my weakness, he helps prop me up. “You okay, kid?”
    “We’re the same age,” I remind him with a weak voice.
    “Right,” he says.
    “I’ll be fine in a minute,” I add and then change the subject. “Your people are on the coast, right? At the end of the river?”
    “There’s an aircraft carrier group just off the coast. I’m sure they’ve got an FOB set up by now.”
    “FOB?” I ask.
    “Forward operating base,” he explains.
    I make a mental note to find a book about the armed services and read it cover to cover. Would make speaking to Wright a lot easier. Then I dig into a satchel hanging from my hip and take out the modern mapping device I christened maptrack . I found it on a Chinese General who’d been killed by the Nephilim. It helped me find Em, Kainda, Luca and the others, but I have no need for it now. I show it to him. “Can you program the coordinates so these men can find their way to the FOB?”
    He takes maptrack and looks it over. The touch screen display is in Chinese, but he seems to have little trouble navigating through the options.
    “Can you read Chinese?” I ask.
    “No,” he says, pushing buttons. “But the interface is fairly common and the icons are universal.” Then he’s done. “All set. They can follow the river most of the way.”
    I take the device and look at the map. “There aren’t any dots.”
    “It’s a GPS device.”
    I’m about to ask what GPS means, but I think he’s catching on to the fact that I’ve missed out on the last twenty years of technological advances. “Global Positioning System. It uses satellites in orbit. The signal can’t go through a mountain, so the positioning dots will appear once it’s outside.”
    When I look up from the device, a sea of faces is staring at me. The freed prisoners have gathered around us, filling the