Path of the Crushed Heart: Book Four of the Serpent Catch Series Read online

  “It makes no difference,” Khur insisted. “Now, she will always know that I loved her, that I was willing to die for her. Every time she tries to make love to another man, she will think of me. I will always be remembered,” Khur boasted, thumping his chest and pacing back and forth across his cell.

  Tull puzzled. “I don’t understand. You will die for someone who doesn’t love you? You will make her feel guilty for what she has done to you? It seems a great waste, when you could have found another lover. Tell me, what have you gained?”

  “Honor,” Khur said, pounding his chest, pulling his shoulders back. He stood behind his bars and grinned. “People will honor and remember me—a mere slave! And I will have revenge. My master will never enjoy sex more than what she had with me!”

  Tull looked into Khur’s big, friendly eyes, his generous smile, and realized that he did not understand Thralls.

  To Khur, who had nothing, a little bit of honor and respect seemed worth his own life. Tull turned away, thought of things he had lost.

  So it was that Atherkula found him dreaming.

  The sorcerer came without his robes of office, wearing instead a simple green tunic and red trousers, with a leather long coat thrown over it all. He had come quietly to the cell door, and found Tull smiling.

  “You are a madman,” Atherkula said, “to be smiling down here. As a lunatic you will be worth nothing—fit only for culling.”

  Tull looked up quizzically, and for some reason could not place Atherkula.

  Atherkula demanded, “Why are you smiling?”

  “Have you ever tasted Frog Hollow cheese?” Tull asked. “The land is cool and foggy down there in the winter—almost a swamp—and many of the trees there have rotted at the core, though they still stand. The folks take those old hollow trees and put bladders of goats’ milk in them to age for the winter. The cheese is yellow and creamy, very pungent. You should try it, really.”

  Atherkula stared at him, and the old man’s eyes were filled with curiosity. “You are dreaming of freedom, aren’t you? You know, I am the man who took it from you, and I could give it back. Mahkawn wants your ear and would make you a Blade Kin if I permitted it. What would you give me for your freedom?”

  Tull looked up, held the old man’s eyes.

  “I tell you what I want for your freedom,” Atherkula said. “Among the Blade Kin, we have an old custom. We pick children who may become Blade Kin, and we give them a pet, and give them time to learn to love that pet. Then we order them to kill it. If they can kill the thing they love, we know they are worthy to become one of us. We know they can be trusted to follow our orders. I tell you this: I will trust you when I see you kill the thing you love most. But who would that be? It seems you do not care for your mother or father. So, I will make it Fava. We caught her at Muskrat Creek, you know. I slept with her last night. She gives a bumpy ride. If you killed her in the arena, I would consider you worthy to be Blade Kin.”

  Tull closed his eyes, fought back his wrath.

  “You’re not going to speak to me?” Atherkula asked. “You’re not going to say anything at all?”

  Tull kept his eyes closed, realizing that if he hoped to make his dreams come true, he’d have to kill. In Bashevgo and in the Rough, he had killed without compunction, but never like this.

  He imagined his dream house, a great stone house in the woods—cream marble with cedar panels on the interior—and it would sit next to a deep pond where trout would swim and mallards would land at night in autumn. He decided to build it in his mind, design and construct it, and imagined piling stone upon stone upon stone.

  ***

  Chapter 9: The Assault

  The attack on Bashevgo was not like anything Fava would have imagined. She had thought that the Hukm with their small force of Okanjara would storm the city on site, taking it by force.

  But Phylomon urged the Hukm to be more patient. He had his Hukm spies spend nine days watching Bashevgo, and often during that time, the days warmed above freezing, rotting the ice out on the sea—their road to the city.

  Phylomon sent an Okanjara to scout the city twice while the Hukm army remained concealed in the hills ninety miles off.

  Yet Fava felt the attack was nearing, for the Hukm began to wrap their long wooden clubs, strengthening them with bits of leather and then painting them with a thin white paste to camouflage them in the snow.

  Phylomon could not pick just any day for an attack. He needed a night of bitter cold during mild tides. With the strong pull of Thor, the tides on Anee often caused variances in sea level of a hundred feet, and the changing water levels would break up the ice near shore.

  Only when the night promised to be bitter cold and the tides mild could Phylomon hope to launch a successful assault.

  With five days’ notice, Phylomon split the Hukm army into seven divisions and set them to attack different targets in the city.

  Fava had never imagined the strategic difficulties they would face, trying to attack a city of millions at night, where nearly half the Blade Kin slept among slaves instead of in a barracks.

  The night of the proposed attack, the skies came clear and cold, but a fog blew over the ice. The mammoths went on the move, thundering over the ice, charging along, until they drew within striking range.

  Then the Hukm army slowed and stopped, waiting for a signal to attack.

  Fava and Darrissea took position at a lookout point on a ledge just five miles south of the city, watching the halo of lights above it.

  Thor had just set, giving the signal to begin the final charge. Not till Freya began to rise would they attack.

  With fog on the ice, only the very top of Bashevgo floated on a sea of clouds. Fava could see the great white capitol dome and some mansions around it, but not the laser turrets on the wall of cannons.

  Fava stopped while the Hukm ran down the slope onto the ice, white fur becoming lost in white fog.

  Fava put on a white head band so that the Hukm would know she was not a Blade Kin once they got to the city, then she pulled her sword and tested its edge, dropped it back into its sheath.

  She had honed it often enough. Phylomon had vanished into the fog, leading the charge, and Fava wished desperately that she could be down there next to the Starfarer.

  “What are you waiting for?” Darrissea asked, her voice hard. Fava wondered if fear made her speak so harshly.

  “I just realized how I am stupid as a tadpole,” Fava answered. “We’re really attacking Bashevgo, aren’t we?”

  “That’s why we came,” Darrissea answered, and there was a firmness in her voice that Fava could not match.

  Fava glanced back. “I guess that’s why we are here.” Fava willed herself to move forward, but her legs seemed locked, and she trembled.

  The ice below them rumbled with the sound of running feet. “I’ve always been so zhefasha, impulsive like the mountain goat,” Fava said. “I jump ahead whenever there is danger so that I won’t be left behind.”

  “You aren’t going to Bashevgo because of the danger,” Darrissea said, “You are going there because of your husband. That is the deal we made together.”

  Fava stood a moment, unmoving, and finally the fear tore through her in great waves, and she wept, trying to work it out. Darrissea wrapped her thin arms around Fava and hugged her. “You will be all right. You have been strong for me when I needed it, so I will be strong for you now. Together we can be stronger than any one person could be alone.”

  “Tchezza fae, so be it,” Fava answered, and Darrissea did not move until Fava stopped weeping. Then Fava held her hand and whispered, “You are a good friend. Can I call you sister?”

  “Yes, I think we should be sisters now,” Darrissea answered. She took Fava’s shoulder and whispered, “Come,” then said more softly. “Don’t get yourself killed. Remember, we can only find Tull if we infiltrate the Blade Kin, not if we fight them outright.”

  Fava nodded, then rushed down the slope to the sea.
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  When they reached the ice, Fava could hear the dull drumming of feet, and the city was lost in the fog, thought the city lights made the fog into a glowing haze.

  Fava watched the back of the Hukms running ahead of her, an indistinct mass, and she raced, trying to keep up, but soon was running blindly in the darkness.

  A youngster charged forward to pace her, a young Hukm who barked softly in greeting. Fava could not see, but recognized that it must be Apple Breath.

  The Hukm girl gripped Fava’s shoulder, guided her over the ice, and Fava kept running blind, placing her feet with care. Often she’d find sharp edges where the ice had cracked and refrozen, and she’d sprawl headlong. Only Apple Breath’s firm grip saved her.

  After what seemed hours, the sky began to lighten above them enough so that she could see more clearly, and Fava realized they were close to the city. She could smell woodsmoke mingled with the fog, and dark masses loomed above them. They raced over the ice between two huge, iron ships.

  Apple Breath stopped, and they huddled while thousands of Hukm came from behind, surrounding them. There had been no cries of warning from the city walls, and the only sound was the panting breaths of the Hukm, and the dim sound of pounding feet, a sound similar to the shifting of ice as the tides changed.

  Fava could not see anything clearly, and knew that small pale Freya had begun to rise only when the Hukm charged forward on their great padded feet.

  She waited as the Hukm infiltrated the city. Certain youngsters were sent to clear the guards away, but she never heard any sounds of their work—no screams, not clubbing.

  Suddenly, the Hukm began to run stealthily uphill, and Fava rushed up behind them, into the gates of the city. She found herself holding Darrissea’s hand.

  Apple Breath rushed ahead, eager to begin killing. There were no guards on the wall, no one minding the laser cannons. Here in the fog the guards had never seen the Hukm coming.

  Fava and Darrissea raced down the city streets, and everywhere they went, the Hukm flowed ahead, while others raced past them.

  They saw no Blade Kin or Thralls, absolutely no one. The streets were lined with carts full of goods, and Fava realized she must be in a market.

  It felt eerie, running dark narrow streets past buildings where the only light issued from fireplaces behind curtained windows.

  Among the carts were thousands of places to hide. After seven minutes, Fava heard a shot in the distance. It could have been five miles away, at some outpost in the great sprawling city.

  A moment later she heard another shot, and another. Within three more minutes the crackling of gunfire was rising from all over the city, yet Fava never saw an enemy.

  She ran with Darrissea down a street, and the crackle of gunfire mingled with screams. She rounded a corner and came face-to-face with a dozen grim Blade Kin. Her heart stopped.

  Four men and a woman had overturned a cart and set it ablaze. At the end of the block, seven others were doing likewise. They wore green capes sewn with the golden dragon emblems of Bashevgo.

  The sergeant saw them and shouted, “Quickly, come in here! Hukm have attacked!”

  Fava could not move. She had promised Phylomon to use the fader sparingly, and she had not yet tested the device, but suddenly she knew she could not follow Phylomon’s orders.

  She reached up and squeezed the ivory brooch, and everyone stopped.

  She stood a moment, studying the sergeant, a torch in his hand. The flames on the torch writhed minutely, like eelgrass blowing in a soft breeze, and the man did not move.

  There were sounds, deep popping noises at the edge of hearing, a distant roaring like the ocean. The air seemed thick when she turned her head, as if she sloshed water, or as if a strong wind blew against her.

  Fava pulled her knife and rushed forward a few steps, the air beating at her face, and stabbed the sergeant in the throat.

  Shoving the knife into him was like stabbing into hard clay, and it took a moment to widen the cut, then she moved forward and stabbed another and another.

  By the time she got the sixth throat slit, the others must have become aware of her, for at the end of the street, one woman had raised a gun and her mouth was open to shout. Fava rushed forward as if she were moving through 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 courtyard.

  Fava heard gunshots and shouting, and saw a blue flash of lightning from the bracken.

  Phylomon stood there alone, sword flashing, among hundreds of Blade Kin, and they were fighting him.

  Phylomon pleaded, shouting a cry of “Freedom,” but the Blade Kin became like mad wolves who have circled a bear and lost all sense.

  She watched some Blade Kin shoot Phylomon a dozen times, and his symbiote withstood the bullets.

  She had no idea whether he could keep it up. The Starfarer’s skin had already turned from its normal blue to a pale gray that looked half-dead.

  He stepped back and blew at his enemies, and a cloud of smoke issued from his mouth. Hundreds of Blade Kin, touched by the cloud, dropped.

  Fava remembered the black cube he had swallowed days before, and realized that he exhaled some kind of potent poison.

  Phylomon leapt into the wake of his cloud, rushed through the shadows.

  A lone man in red armor leapt in front of Phylomon, and the two struggled for a heartbeat before Phylomon tossed him aside. Guns fired, hurling Phylomon to the ground.

  Darrissea shouted to the Blade Kin, “Wait! He came to save you! Stop!”

  Phylomon began to crawl, and the Blade Kin faded back from the black cloud and fired through it, again and again, until the Starfarer collapsed.

  Still they continued to fire.

  The flames from the capitol, leapt into the air, and in the red light Fava squeezed the ivory button to her Fader, hoping it had had time to recharge.

  Nothing happened.

  She squeezed it again while the Blade Kin shot Phylomon. She could see now that his blue skin had faded to white, and finally one Blade Kin shouted for his men to stop firing.

  An old Blade Kin commander, a man with a black robe and an eye patch, went to the white body of Phylomon, kicked him onto his back.