Free Path of the Crushed Heart: Book Four of the Serpent Catch Series by David Farland

water, pressing against some invisible mass.
    She saw the hammer dropping on the gun but reached the woman before it fell.
    Fava slit her throat, recocked the gun, and set its safety before killing the others.
    When she finished, she looked at her handiwork. All twelve Blade Kin stood with gashes on their throats, and the first three victims were stumbling.
    She waited—suddenly the Blade Kin around her dropped, blood pumping from their necks, one with a cry of warning bubbling hot from her throat.
    Darrissea stood, trembling, and peered down in horror.
    Gunfire crackled all across the city, and there was a roar of human screams and howls of pain from Hukm, and Fava had no idea whether the Hukm were winning or losing and she thought it was the end of the world.
    She looked up to the tops of the hills and saw the white towers around the capitol burning.
    Laser fire flashed around it, shining in the fog.
    Phylomon must be there, she realized, and she ran for the capitol.
    The sound of gunfire grew frantic, and as clouds of smoke rose, the firelight reflecting off the smoke lit the city in a red haze.
    Fava and Darrissea rushed down a long street and began finding dead Hukm mingled with the corpses of Blade Kin, and everywhere frightened Thralls were streaming out of houses, peering out windows.
    The street was a battle zone, and one Neanderthal woman saw Fava’s uniform and shouted, “Adja! Please, rescue us!”
    Fava tried to push her away and the woman shouted, “Please, I fear the Hukm!”
    Fava stopped dead in her tracks, looked the woman in the face. The terror was genuine, and a slave ran from a building, grabbed the sword from a dead Blade Kin. The man ran to a Hukm that lay bleeding on the dirty street, and the slave hacked the monster, and that is when Fava knew they would lose.
    They would not be fighting a few hundred thousand Blade Kin. They would be fighting millions of Thralls, terrified of the wild Hukm with their bloody reputation.
    The monumental size of Phylomon’s error struck her.
    “The Hukm—” Darrissea started to explain, but Fava stopped her, pulled her up the street, and found that they were running through avenues littered with corpses, the dark bloody corpses of Blade Kin, the white furry corpses of giant Hukm. As they ran up the steps of the capitol, they found the huge dome ablaze and the Hukm retreating, fleeing the city for the sheltering darkness.
    A great blinding flash erupted in the sky, and the capitol exploded in a mushroom cloud that seemed to go up and up.
    Fava realized that Phylomon must have decimated the building with one of his hover mines. A moment later, to the north, a second mushroom cloud erupted—the barracks at Badger Hill.
    “That’s the signal to prepare for retreat,” Darrissea whispered.
    Fava froze, surprised that Phylomon would recognize that they were losing so quickly. The battle was not fifteen minutes old. Darrissea reached into her pack, removed a white rod, looked up at Fava, and held out her harmonic disrupter. “Should we start the earthquake now?”
    Fava looked down. “No! Tull and Anorath are here, and my mother and father and family! An earthquake could kill them!”
    “But Phylomon said—”
    “I don’t care!” Fava shouted, then looked to see if anyone was watching. “If we do not worry about our own families, what of the Thralls? Think of their children!”
    Darrissea stopped, still shaking. The street was choked with bodies of Hukm.
    “We’re losing!” She shouted, and she began to weep.
    “Then let’s lose with honor,” Fava said, and she took Darrissea’s harmonic disrupter. “I … don’t know what’s happening. Let’s find Phylomon.”
    They raced up the street toward the capitol, unprepared for the scene that awaited.
    The great dome had collapsed, and thousands of Blade Kin lay dead before it like blackened flies. Flames licked the sky.
    Yet hundreds more Blade Kin swarmed around a pile of bracken in the