Book II of "The Animal in Man" saga, which won First Place in “The Sword & Laser: The Sequel” Contest, and part of The Sword & Laser Collection on Inkshares.

"Ferocious Heart" picks up immediately where "Violent Mind" leaves off. Maxan the fox is a long way from home. Half of his friends have abandoned him. The other half lies battered and desperately clinging to life. But they are safe. For now. As the gears of the strange machine grind to life and carry them along the underground network of railways long buried beneath the gray dust of Herbridia, Maxan soon discovers that he’s not out of danger at all, that he could not outrun his destiny. The greatest danger of all has been drawing him in all along. In Ferocious Heart, Maxan will come face to face with the adversary who has been hunting for him from the shadows all along.

The voice in the fox’s head knows the answer. The blood in the fox’s veins has the sequence. And the gate to all the worlds beyond the stars remains closed. The architect of all this tiny world’s troubles, the commander of the secret brotherhood called the Monitors, the malevolent force who would see the galaxy wiped clean of all life as penance for the sins of mankind, the snake Salastragore, needs the key only Maxan holds.

The story that began in Book I with animals swinging swords and leaping across rooftops continues in Book II, where cybernetic creatures strapped with devastating weaponry are pitted against psionic adepts who can warp the physical world with a mere thought. And when all the smoke clears, when the truth is laid bare, Maxan will come eye to eye with his world’s true creators, continued in "The Animal in Man" Book III: Undying Soul.