She nods. Apparently lions are known to the underworld, probably because they’re renowned killers. Horses, not so much.
We follow the trail up through the cave. I’m kicking myself for not seeing it on the way in, but I wasn’t looking at the floor. I was too busy rushing to the last spot where I saw Mira. Seeing the trail earlier wouldn’t have really changed anything, but it might have saved a minute or two.
When we reach the cave exit and step out into the light of day, we’re greeted by our dinosaur companions. They look up from the river where they’re drinking and then they look back at us. They’re massive creatures, stretching thirty feet from snout to tail tip. Grumpy’s green skin shimmers, like new growth leaves in the sunlight. The maroon stripes over his neck, back and tail seem to absorb the light, creating a pattern of contrasting color and brightness that helps him blend into the jungle. But it’s the tall crest over his eyes that distinguishes him from other dinosaur species—well, that and the fact that most other dinosaurs are now extinct. I say most, because this continent is full of surprises, the most recent of which is whatever took Mira.
The cresties go back to their refreshment when we walk past without speaking to them. The trail is easy to follow. It’s a mash of footprints, a mix of species, following what appears to be a game trail through the jungle. Whoever has Mira is either so confident that they don’t fear being tracked, or they’re completely naïve to what is going on. I realize there is a third option a moment before Kainda speaks it aloud.
“This feels like a trap.”
She’s right. The trail is too easy to follow. But that’s also the problem. “It’s a really bad trap.”
She frowns. “Obvious.”
“Right.” I look at her. “Not that it changes anything.”
“Trap or not,” she says. “We push forward.”
I stop and take her hand. “Thank you.”
She looks back, meeting my eyes with hers. Her dark brown eyes look almost black, perfectly matching her tied-back hair. “You would do far more for me.” She scrunches her nose and then corrects herself. “You have done far more for me.”
I want to kiss her. The moment is perfect. Her face looks soft. And her tan body, clad in the scant coverings of a hunter, has a sheen of sweat mixed with humidity that makes her glow. Focus, says the voice of Kat in my head.
Focus, I tell myself. Mira is in danger.
I pull my eyes away from Kainda and search the jungle around us. The trees—a species unknown to me—rise hundreds of feet into the air, their branches twisting and splitting into a thousand different directions. They remind me of when I used to drop ink onto a page and blow it with a straw. But the diamond-shaped leaves are sparse, and large patches of sunlight beam to the ground, allowing thick vegetation to grow. Moving through this jungle on anything but this path would be very time consuming...unless...
I look up. “Let’s take the high road.”
Scaling the tree’s craggy bark is a simple thing. Soon we’re moving through the jungle faster, more silently and without any fear of being set upon by an ambush. Not that we see one. It appears that whoever left the tracks is just sloppy.
Twenty minutes and a little more than a mile later, the trail splits ninety degrees in either direction, skirting the base of a cliff. We climb down to the jungle floor and inspect the tracks.
“They head in either direction,” Kainda says. “And they’re all equally fresh.”
“She could have been taken in either direction,” I say.
“We need to split up.”
I don’t like this idea, at all. Not because I don’t believe Kainda is capable of rescuing Mira on her own, or that I don’t trust she really wants to. But there are some things in the jungle that she can’t handle alone, and if I manage to find Mira, but lose Kainda, I won’t be any better off than I am now. Before I can say any of this, I spot something that keeps me from having to.
I quickly inspect the tracks on one path, and then move to the second.
“What is it?” she asks.
I ignore her, and move back to the path leading up to the T junction. “There they are,” I say.
“What?”
“The lion tracks.” I point to the large paw print.
“I’ve been thinking about that,” she says, while I move to the path leading to the right. “Do you think this could be the lion from Edinnu? What did you call him?”
“Ookla,” I say, before pointing to the path. “No lion prints.”
I move to the path leading to the left.
“Do you think this could be Ookla?” she asks. “And other creatures from Edinnu?”
“No,” I say. I point to the path. “No lion prints.”
“How do you know?” she asks, sounding frustrated at being dismissed so quickly.
“Because,” I say, stepping closer to the rock wall and looking up. The cliff rises higher than I can see, stretching up into a bank of clouds. “I don’t remember Ookla being able to fly.”
2
“Fly?” Kainda says. She’s about to ask what I’m talking about, but then seems to understand. She glances at all three trails. “The lion tracks stop here.”
“And since there are no tracks through the jungle, no tracks heading back or into the trees, there is only one direction left to go.” I look up.
“I don’t see how this helps,” she says. “Now we have three choices instead of two.”
“We need to go up,” I say.
“Is that what your instincts tell you?” she asks.
“Yeah,” I say, hoping she doesn’t hear the lie. The truth is, lions have sharp claws and big teeth. If Mira is with the farm animal gang, I’m a little less afraid for her, but if she’s with the flying lions, well, that’s a bigger problem.
Kainda steps up to the wall and lifts herself up.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
“The climb will take most of the day,” she says. “I don’t want the sun to go down while I’m a thousand feet above the ground, do you?”
“Who said anything about climbing?” I say. She flinches when I pluck her from the wall and put her back on the ground. If I’d been anyone else, I’d be dead right now. The look on her face says I still might be.
I put my hands on her hips.
“You’re testing my patience,” she says.
“You love it,” I say.
She tries to squelch a smile, but fails.
“Hold on,” I say.
She puts her hands on my shoulders. When a sudden wind kicks up around us, she’s pressed up against me. My hands slide around to her back and her arms wrap around the back of my neck. The embrace distracts us both and by the time I open my eyes, we’re a hundred feet off the ground and climbing.
I hear a gasp in my ear. Kainda’s arms squeeze a little tighter. That this hardened woman can feel fear pleases me. She’d once been numb to anything but hate, and now, she is so much more. It’s one of the things I like best about her. The softening of one’s heart is not an easy thing to do. I’m not sure I could have done it myself without Aimee’s help.
Aimee, Mira’s mother, held me in her arms just moments after I was born. It was her face that greeted me into the world and her face that returned me to it. And now, Merrill, her husband and my friend, has returned to save her, only now they’ve lost their daughter. And the majority of that is my fault. All the more reason to hurry.
The wind becomes an upward moving cyclone. My long blond hair whips around, stinging my skin. The air tugs at my clothing, which is not much more than Tarzan’s loin cloth, a belt full of pouches, and Whipsnap—my weapon—wrapped around my waist, but a quick adjustment dulls the effect of the wind on our bodies.
My control over Antarctica’s elements is more honed than ever. I can control the air, water, land and other natural elements of the continent as though they are part of my own body. Performing an unnatural feat, like flying, still wears me out, but summoning a storm or shifting the wi
nd is almost second nature. I don’t understand how I’m able to do these things. All I know is that my connection to the continent is a supernatural ability given to me at my birth, which was not too far from our current location. I was the first and only child born on Antarctica to non-Nephilim corrupted humans. That somehow bonded me to the land. Cronus, the Titan who resides in Tartarus, would probably say it was a gift, bestowed on me by a higher power. Actually, Adoel the angel would probably agree. And it’s hard to argue with powerful beings that are not only ancient, but also genuine.
I’ve thought a lot about this during my time here. Certain events and the connections between people, and beings, times and places stretching back through time are hard to ignore. On one hand are the Nephilim, soulless half-demon, half-human monsters who want to eradicate the human race. On the other hand is a ragtag group of redeemed hunters, teachers, Titans, clones and even a traitor Nephilim willing to sacrifice himself to protect humanity. This war has been waged for thousands of years and is coming to a head...because of me.
A kid.
Sure, in surface years, I might be thirty-something years old, and yeah, I have a full beard, but I’m really just an eighteen year old who wouldn’t be allowed to drink a beer.
And now, Nephil, aka Ophion, the first Nephilim whose spirit now resides in Ninnis, wants to claim my body for himself, something he came very close to doing. Now, the human race is looking to me for leadership against a supernatural army. And now, I’m doubting. Not in my purpose here. Or in my abilities. Or even in my ability to lead, or fight, and maybe even win.
But in the rightness of it all.
I’ve come to believe in God. I’ve even prayed. Twice. I’ve seen things, and spoken to creatures, and experienced other worlds that leaves no doubt that some kind of architect or mastermind is sitting behind the curtain, pulling our strings, directing us all to some sort of destiny. But there had to have been another way.
Billions died when Nephil used my body, and my connection to the land, to rotate the Earth’s crust around its molten core, bringing Antarctica to the equator and destroying entire countries in the process. And then there are the more personal losses: Elias, Xin, Hades, Cerebus, Wright—even Ninnis, whose memories of his true self were returned for just a moment before Nephil took over once again. And what about the hunters—Kainda, Em, Elias, Zuh, and thousands more who have been tortured, corrupted and turned into monsters? How can all of this darkness, and hate, and death be allowed?
And why do I have to be at the center of it all?
“Solomon!” The voice is faint, barely reaching my consciousness. Then it repeats, louder, “Solomon!” I recognize the voice. Kainda. I open my eyes, not realizing they’d been closed, and I see the cliff face, streaking past, just a few feet away. We’re traveling as fast as a missile and I’ve nearly crashed us into a rock wall.
I slow until we’re hovering. My breath is ragged. The first pangs of exhaustion clutch my muscles. Lost in my anger and confusion, my powers took on a life of their own, reflecting my mood.
“Are you alright?” Kainda asks.
I nod. It’s my second lie and I feel a pang of guilt. I don’t want to lie to Kainda, about anything. “Actually, I’m not sure.”
Before she can reply, I see the top of the cliff and forget all about my doubts and waning energy. “Look.”
I spin us around so we can both look at the cliff. We’re just thirty feet from the top, but the most remarkable aspect of the wall isn’t the rock, but what’s been built upon it.
“Those are nests,” Kainda says.
“Really big nests,” I add. I count twenty of them. Each is made from a combination of branches, leaves and random pliable objects. I see tents, ropes, blankets and large feathers in the mix. The oval shaped nests are at least fifteen feet long, half as wide and deep. They cling to the cliff face, resting on ledges and glued in place by something white and goopy. At the top of each nest, the cliff is carved away, forming paths to the top as though formed naturally by some ancient waterfall or glacier.
I bring us close to the wall and land just above one of the nests. Once Kainda is out of my arms, she scrambles up the stone path, headed for the cliff’s precipice. I linger behind for a moment, looking into the nest. I’m expecting to see more feathers. Eggs perhaps. What I find instead surprises me. Really, nothing should surprise me anymore. I’ve seen a two headed, flying gigantes. But when I see golden lion hair coating the bottom of nest, I’m taken aback. True, I’d already surmised that the lions could somehow fly, but roosting like birds? Why? It doesn’t make any sense. Then again, I just flew up the side of a thousand foot cliff and I don’t have an S on my chest.
A chirp from above catches my attention. It sounds like one of the many species now populating the jungles of Antarctica, but the subtle urgent tone is all Kainda. I turn up and see her up above me on the slope, lying flat on her stomach. Without looking back she waves her hand, motioning me to join her.
I climb the stone in silence, still preferring bare feet to boots. Half way to the top, I see that Kainda is holding her battle hammer, which is a human-sized version of Mjölnir, the Nephilim Thor’s hammer. He’d once been Kainda’s master, just as Thor’s father, Odin, was Ninnis’s, and Thor’s son, Ull, was mine. The Norse clan of Nephilim warrior, while not the most powerful, had produced three of the most feared and capable hunters, two of which might be their undoing.
Knowing that the hammer is out because Kainda is preparing for battle, I reach down for Whipsnap, but stop short of freeing the weapon. There were two Whipsnaps. The one I built from bone, wood and stone, and the second, forged by the Nephilim with an amalgam of solid, but light metals. I took both with me from Edinnu, and although I felt nostalgic about the weapon I constructed, I had to admit it was the inferior of the two. Of course, the second Whipsnap has been my constant companion for years, in the underground, on the surface and in Tartarus. I’m pretty attached to it. So I’ve kept the Nephilim variant, which has a more rigid staff that springs open more quickly. The crack it makes when loosed from my belt would give us away. I crouch down as I near the top, peeking through the tall grass at the edge.
My eyes widen and I whisper. “You have got to be kidding me.”
3
“Have you seen them before?” Kainda whispers.
“You haven’t?”
She shakes her head, no. “But...I think I know what they are.”
“Me too,” I say, looking at the figures. I can’t make out details from this distance—they’re at least a quarter mile from the cliff’s edge—but their bolder features make them easily identifiable to me. I point to a creature with the body of a lion, and the head and wings of an eagle. “That’s a griffin.”
She points to one of the myths made real, this one with the body of a horse and a humanoid torso. “That’s a centaur, right?”
“Yup,” I say, pointing out several more. “And there’s a manticore, a gorgon, a minotaur.” My finger lands on a strange chicken-like thing with the upper body of a woman. She pokes her head forward with each step, eyes to the ground. “And that must be a harpie.” Several more scurry up behind the largest of the bunch. “Harpies.”
It’s a Greek mythological Who’s Who, though it’s clear none of the would-be gods are present. These are the lesser creatures of the Greek myths. The pawns. The castaways.
“We call them the Forsaken,” Kainda says. “But I thought they were just a story told to scare us before we were broken.”
Despite my inner Ray Harryhausen fan being thrilled by what we’re seeing, the fact that these creatures are the living embodiment of what hunters consider scary children’s stories is not very comforting. I don’t really want to ask, but I need to know what we’re dealing with. “Tell me about them.”
“They’re Nephilim,” she says.
Of course they are, I think.
“But they didn’t fit into any of the more powerful classes. They might have the features of a war
rior, a gatherer or one of the others, but they’re mixed, usually in disfiguring ways with lesser animals.”
“How is that possible?” I ask. “The Nephilim are half-human, half-demon. How could they have the body of a—” Kainda’s raised eyebrow stops me in my tracks. The mix of sarcasm and humor on her face seems to say something to the effect of, “My sweet, little, naïve, Solomon.”
That’s when the reality of these creatures hits me. “Ugh.” Demons are not human. Not even close. So a demon having a Nephilim child with a human isn’t any more unnatural than a demon spawning with, say, a horse. They’re equally outlandish. Gross, sure, but plausible—at least where the Nephilim are concerned. As for the creatures with more than one species... I don’t want to speculate—lest I throw up and give us away—but I’d guess it has something to do with the thinker Nephilim class’s penchant for genetic tinkering.
Kainda spares me from the horrors of my own imagination, saying, “Because they didn’t fit into any of the true Nephilim classes and served no purpose in the eyes of the warriors, they were cast out.”
“But not all of them,” I say.
She looks at me, confused.
“Pan,” I say. “He must have somehow proven himself.”
She nods. “His thirst for human blood was unrivaled. But other than that, I’m not sure what could have set him apart. As for the rest of his ilk, they have lurked in the shadows and on the fringes of the underworld ever since, watching young hunters for signs of weakness and snatching them into the dark.”
“What happened then?” I ask.
“What do you think?”
I shrug and guess. “Sacrificed and eaten?”
“How would you put it...” she says. “Yup.”
I don’t miss the fact that Kainda’s mood has become strangely lighthearted. Then I realize why. We’re about to do battle. The down, dirty and bloody kind. There are about fifty of the things out there, some look to be twenty feet tall. We are severely outsized and outnumbered. But Kainda wouldn’t have it any other way and it has her charged up.
5 Onslaught Page 2