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Doc’s madness-inflected tones cut through the howling wind

“Unhand me! I shall not go softly and gently. Unhand me, I say!” The sounds of scuffling increased. There was a shout of pain, and Doc’s voice, raging incoherently, retreated into the distance, buried by the wailing wind.

Jak looked to Ryan. In the dim light, the one-eyed man could see the tension in the albino teen’s face. He nodded.

“Who’s next, love?” Krysty asked as Jak opened the wag door a sliver and squeezed through. “You or me?” She couldn’t believe that they seemed to be breaking all their rules.

“Mebbe both—whatever it takes. Sometimes we’ve just gotta stand or fall as one.”

Prophecy

Death Lands_®

James Axler

www.mirabooks.co.uk

The quest for certainty blocks the search for meaning. Uncertainty is the very condition to impel man to unfold his powers.

—Erich Fromm

1900–1980

THE DEATHLANDS SAGA

This world is their legacy, a world born in the violent nuclear spasm of 2001 that was the bitter outcome of a struggle for global dominance.

There is no real escape from this shockscape where life always hangs in the balance, vulnerable to newly demonic nature, barbarism, lawlessness.

But they are the warrior survivalists, and they endure—in the way of the lion, the hawk and the tiger, true to nature’s heart despite its ruination.

Ryan Cawdor: The privileged son of an East Coast baron. Acquainted with betrayal from a tender age, he is a master of the hard realities.

Krysty Wroth: Harmony ville’s own Titian-haired beauty, a woman with the strength of tempered steel. Her premonitions and Gaia powers have been fostered by her Mother Sonja.

J. B. Dix, the Armorer: Weapons master and Ryan’s close ally, he, too, honed his skills traversing the Deathlands with the legendary Trader.

Doctor Theophilus Tanner: Torn from his family and a gentler life in 1896, Doc has been thrown into a future he couldn’t have imagined.

Dr. Mildred Wyeth: Her father was killed by the Ku Klux Klan, but her fate is not much lighter. Restored from predark cryogenic suspension, she brings twentieth-century healing skills to a nightmare.

Jak Lauren: A true child of the wastelands, reared on adversity, loss and danger, the albino teenager is a fierce fighter and loyal friend.

Dean Cawdor: Ryan’s young son by Sharona accepts the only world he knows, and yet he is the seedling bearing the promise of tomorrow.

In a world where all was lost, they are humanity’s last hope….

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter One

The sky was a dark blue bleeding into an umbra of purple. It lurched, turned, then spun through 180 degrees. Sickening pain jarred in Jak’s elbow, making him bite back the curse that welled up in his throat as bile sought to join it. The Colt Python .357, never a light blaster at the best of times, felt like a deadweight in a hand momentarily numbed. He spit out a lump of bitter phlegm and turned his head.

“Fuck’s sake, Ryan, can’t fire like this.”

The one-eyed man grunted by way of reply as he pulled hard on the wheel of the wag, seeking to avoid another rut in the dry, hard-packed surface. There was no time for words.

Jak cursed again as he slid across the seat in the back of the wag, careening into Mildred, jolting her arm as she took aim at their pursuers.

“Damn it,” she snapped as the shot from her revolver sailed high and wide of its intended target.

As soon as they had left the blacktop, each of the companions had known that any attempt at a perfect aim was little more than a hope; but none of them had realized quite how deceptive the surface they had chosen would prove to be.

And their pursuers were more familiar with the territory.

“EASY, BOY. WON’T BE long ’fore we have ’em exactly where we want them.”

Jase Demetriou, the driver of the pursuing wag, chuckled. High, with a keening edge, it was the sound of someone who had a high regard for pain and suffering, and who would enjoy inflicting it before the merciful release of a chilling.

“Less laughing and more driving,” the speaker cautioned.

Jase nodded with a manic precision. Unhinged he may have been, but Jase was the finest wag driver to come out of Brisbane ville. He looked like he’d barely hit adolescence, but was pushing twenty-five. The sweet, boyish looks that made him a hit with all the gaudies were betrayed by the glint in his eyes. Corden had covered for him many a time. The sights he had seen sickened him, but without Jase his band of coldhearts could never catch their prey.

Like they were doing right now. The stupes were trying to fire on Corden’s boys, but the graying brigand knew the land around well enough to feel assured that they would never find their target. The plains that spread between what had once been northern Kansas, Iowa and Nebraska were still—in many ways—the same as they had been since thousands of years before skydark. The only difference was that after the nukecaust the crust of the earth had seemed to ripple along this flat expanse. Just a little. Just enough to be invisible to the naked eye, but like a never-ending corrugation when you hit it with a wag. Especially a wag in which you were putting pedal to metal. Speed and poor suspension would jolt you, bounce you around the inside of the wag like a pea in a can.

Jase knew the land like it was a part of him. He’d driven it since he was tall enough to get in a seat and have his foot touch the pedal. It was still rough, but he could ride it. And Corden’s men knew better than to waste ammo while the wags were in motion.

It was real easy: wait until the stupe driver of the wag they were chasing tipped himself over, then go and pick at the carcass like vultures. There was little real danger. Anyone who put up resistance was usually too dazed by the crash to shoot straight. It was simple to pick them off.

Corden smiled slow as Jase skirted another ripple in the earth. This was one easy way to make jack.

In the rear of the old four-by-four they used, the other two coldhearts who rode with Corden waited their call to action. Thornton yawned and scratched at the ginger stubble on his sharp chin. Nothing excited him until the moment he was called upon to act. Chambers ran a hand over his shaved skull repeatedly, a nervous action. Unlike the others, the dark-skinned coldheart always felt a gnawing in the pit of his stomach until the moment of action. Only then could he really relax.

“We ain’t gonna catch ’em in time,” he murmured.

“We will,” Corden drawled. “Jase ain’t let no fucker get away yet.”

“Always a first time,” Thornton muttered. “Just not today, Jase, just not today.”

Corden’s smile broadened. “You got some more gambling debts to pay?”

“Win some, lose some.” Thornton shrugged.

“Lose some, lose some.” Chambers added. “This guy’s good. Knew this ’un would be hard.”

“Nothing beats Jase for pace,” Corden chuckled.

“Never has, never will,” the wag driver said softly.

RYAN COULDN’T SEE the ruts before he was on them. The land ahead looked smooth; that was why he had opted to leave the blacktop behind to try to outrun the wag on their tail. Outrun enough to circle and take the offensive. Except it wasn’t quite working out as he had hoped. It was all he could do to keep the wag from tipping. The scrub—dark browns with a glimmer of green and some purple and blue to echo the sky—went by them in a blur, both near and in the distance. Over to the horizon, depending on which way he spun the wheel to try to ride another rut, there were the low outlines of hills leading to a plateau. Good cover, but too far away.

They were exposed. Ryan couldn’t see behind him, but from the terse epithets dripping from the lips of his companions, he was in no uncertain mind that their pursuers were gaining, with little hope of effective fire to push them back.

Their wag was powerful, with a tuned engine that was only now beginning to whine at the strain he was putting on it; a solid body with roll bars; no windows—bar the windshield—to either obstruct firing out, or to injure with flying glass from incoming fire; no roof; not armored, but a good, thickly steeled body and a four-wheel drive system. So, it was a wag made for endurance and a driver who knew how to pilot the vehicle. Ryan had escaped from too many similar situations to be caught easily. By the same token, he also knew that his pursuer was a wag jockey who was far, far superior. More importantly, he knew the territory too well.

“Gaining,” J.B. said shortly. “Mebbe a few more minutes, then they’re on us.”

“Can’t get a decent shot at them,” Krysty gasped, her breath coming short after a swerve had flung her against the wag’s central column.

“I would venture that perhaps these coldhearts are so per…sistent because they know what we carry,” Doc stammered between jolts, his frame flung around the interior of the wag.

“That’s not rocket science,” Mildred breathed. “I’d just like to get my hands on the bastard who talked.”

IF ONLY SHE KNEW IT, Mildred Wyeth would have been too late to extract revenge on their betrayer. Tilson was chilled, his sightless eyes staring into the sky as his corpse lay behind the bar he had, until a few short hours before, tended, the bar where he kept his eyes and ears open for any information he could sell.

Ling and Smith had been the inadvertent source of his tale. The two sec men for Big Bal Hearne, baron of Brisbane, had been admiring of the people they had so recently worked alongside. Too admiring, and too mired in brew.

“Still don’t see why Bal didn’t trust us with the job,” Smith had muttered.

“Specialist job needs specialist worker,” Ling slurred. “Look at it like this. We know these people. Mebbe Bal figured we were too close to things, couldn’t see what was going on under our own noses.”

“Fuck off. We’re good sec. Best there is. Wouldn’t keep jobs otherwise.”

Ling shook his head so hard he nearly fell off his stool. “Shit,” he muttered, grabbing the bar for support and looking around before he said anything else. He beckoned Smith nearer. Neither of them noticed Tilson. No one did. That was the secret of being a good bartender. And the secret of learning secrets.

“Doesn’t matter what we are. Mebbe Bal was right. How would we know? Point is that he got to be the baron he is by being careful. Eyes in his ass. Eyes on everything. Suspects every fucker. Trusts none of ’em, either. That includes us.”

“So why does he trust them?” Smith asked, his brow furrowing as he tried to make sense of Ling’s words through the fog of alcohol.

“Reputation. Word spreads by trader. Traders live or get chilled by how they run their convoys. Coldheart cheating bastards don’t last long. These guys rode too many convoys. Simple.” He shrugged and nearly fell off his stool. Righting himself again, he added, “Besides, they got it right, didn’t they? I wouldn’t have thought Alex had it in him to sell us out like that. Too stupe, for a start. ’Cept we were the stupes not to see what he was doing.”

Smith sighed heavily. “Sure could have done with that jack as bonus.”

Ling barked a short laugh that turned to a cough. He hawked, then said, “That ain’t all. Good wag and supplies for the six of them, too.”

“Fuck’s sake, why they get that?” Smith questioned, his eyes wide.

Ling shrugged. “Dunno. Guess it’s ’cause they missed the convoy out of town. Figure Bal would want them to go rather than wait for the next one.” He grinned when he saw the puzzled look on Smith’s face. “Know too much. Know Bal’s weak spot. Know the whole story. We don’t. Would you want them still around, knowing what they do?”

Smith’s puzzled frown grew more intent. “That’s a fuckload of knowing,” he muttered.

One thing Tilson knew: neither man would remember what they knew come the morning. Neither would, in all likelihood, remember a word of what they had discussed this night. The pair had drunk far too much. Tilson knew them well: not as men, but as customers. He knew their limits, had added shine to their brew when he realized their tongues were loosening. Knowledge was power. That was what “knowing” really meant.

It was late. The bar was quiet now. Only a few solitary drinkers and the two sec men remained. Tilson cast an eye over the dingy interior. He could slip out for a few moments and not be missed. Big Bal Hearne made his people work hard, in return for which they had a reasonably secure life. There was little else in this territory. Few people stayed out late when they had backbreaking work come sunrise.

Tilson left the drinkers and made his way to a rooming house down the sidewalk. It was a pretty fair bet he wouldn’t be seen, but he still maintained a level of caution.

The main door to the rooming house was unlocked. The hall was dark, but he knew his way along it by feel. His boots greeted each sagging floorboard and splintered crack like an old friend. On the steps, he knew which ones were liable to creak, and which ones he could tread securely.

Second floor. Third door on the left. As he reached it, he could hear the low murmur of voice within. Softly, he tapped on the door. Two quick, pause, two slow. The door opened a crack, the face in shadow from the dim glow of the oil lamp within. But the high-pitched giggle was unmistakable.

DEMETRIOU GIGGLED again. “On ’em soon enough.”

Corden looked over his shoulder and into the rear of the four-by-four. Chambers was wide-eyed, intense concentration on his face. He was cradling a blaster in one arm, the hand of the other unconsciously stroking the barrel. Thornton looked almost asleep, heavy-lidded eyes masking his expression. A remade Glock and an old PPK .38 were lying loosely in his lap, his hands barely touching them.

Corden’s weathered skin creased as he looked from one to the other. ‘Get ready, boys. Showtime.’

Thornton sat forward, his eyes barely opening any farther. “’Bout time. I’ve got a hot date with some craps, and this is taking way too long.”

Chambers shook his head. “Man, you’re gonna lose that before it’s even dented your pocket. Might not get a payday like this for some time to come. You should be more careful.”

“Like you, eh?” Thornton murmured with a sly grin. Chambers looked uncomfortable. He thought that his little jolt habit was a secret. He should have realized that a person couldn’t keep such secrets in a small ville like Brisbane.

Corden, seeing his expression, barked a harsh, loud laugh and reached across, clapping Chambers on the shoulder.

“Who gives a fuck, as long as you do the job. Just keep that in mind, boy.” With which, he turned back to the plain unfolding in front of them. There was less distance between the wags than before. With each turn the vehicle ahead made, it lost a little. With each spin of the wheel Demetriou made, they gained a little more.

It wouldn’t be long now. And while the four coldhearts rode every bump and dip in the plain, knowing from long experience where Demetriou’s driving could not avoid disturbance, Corden knew that the six people in the wag ahead would be bounced like a pig in a barrel, until their heads were ringing and they couldn’t see straight.

Easy meat.

“GAINING,” JAK SAID simply.

“How much?” Ryan snapped over his shoulder.

“Too much,” Krysty replied. She was in the front, next to Ryan, and had wedged herself—as much as was possible—between the seat and the dash. Her head was against the roof at an angle. She risked her neck, but at least she had some stability and her bastard ribs didn’t hurt so much. It also gave her a view that was the equal of the others, and another pair of eyes for the driver, who could not risk a backward glance.

“No way we’re gonna outrun them, lover. This is their land. We’re gonna have to stand and fight.”

“Always assuming, my dear, that we can work out which of them we should fire upon,” Doc said softly. “I fear that I will be seeing double, at the very least.”

“If we didn’t jump so much on this bastard surface, then at least we could get off some fire at them,” J.B. muttered as much to himself as to anyone else.

He knew what Mildred was about to say before the words came out of her mouth. It was the natural repost: “They know we can’t. That’s why they were so keen to follow us out here.”

Ryan’s mind whirred. That was the key: their pursuers’ knowledge of the territory had allowed them to bide their time. Just keep driving, and the land wasn’t going to get any flatter. Sooner or later someone would get injured—already had, if he was any judge of how Krysty had positioned herself—and if it was him then the wag crashed. They were making it easy for the coldheart bastards.

So give them something they wouldn’t expect.

“Stay frosty. This is gonna hurt,” the one-eyed man yelled as he threw the wag into a spin.

TILSON HAD NO INTIMATION of what would happen to him when Demetriou admitted him to the darkened room. He had some good information. Corden paid him well. In the wake of a convoy there was always someone who wanted to get out of the ville. They headed off, and no one knew if they ever reached their destination. No one cared. It was that simple. This time, there was more jack involved than usual. He should get paid well.

Not that this was the only kind of information he peddled. You fade into the background, keep alert and you hear all sorts of shit. Tilson knew that Corden would do anything to rake in the jack. And there were always things going down that Big Bal Hearne wouldn’t like, things that could be kept secret at a cost.

“So what brings you here when you should be tending bar?” Corden asked from where he sat on the room’s only chair. “Something good, I hope.”

Tilson told him as concisely as possible. He knew he had to get back to the bar.

Corden nodded, then shrugged. “Sounds good. We’ll keep an eye for them. The usual arrangement, right?” Tilson nodded. “Okay. Fuck off.”

Tilson had hurried out, closing the door behind him.

DEMETRIOU YELLED incoherently, throwing the wag into a spin and throwing Chambers and Thornton into each other, their blasters clattering to the floor of the vehicle, the noise mingling with their shouts of incomprehension and fury.

Corden, on the other hand, just smiled. Softly he said, “Well, well, they got balls, I’ll give ’em that. Even the bitches.”

Demetriou slewed the vehicle counter to the grain of the land, bucking as he hit a rise that he would otherwise have avoided. Corden braced himself, looked over his shoulder at the coldhearts in the rear.

“Ready to rumble, boys. Looks like they want some action.”

JUST AS CHAMBERS and Thornton had been taken by surprise, so, too, had the companions in the wag ahead. It was only the fact that there were four of them squeezed tighter in the rear of the vehicle that saved a greater injury.

“Ryan, what—”

“I get it. Take the fight to them.” J.B. grinned. “Why not?”

Ryan’s jaw was set tight in concentration, but still the ghost of a smile flickered across his lips. “Attack is the best form of defense.”

He was headed straight for the wag that had been pursuing them. For the first time, he got a clear look at his opponents. Two in front, two in back. The wag jockey had an intense, focused look about him. The man next to him—older, more battle-scarred—had a little more insouciance. A veteran. He didn’t get a clear look at the two in the back before the wag slewed to one side, trying to flank them. With their knowledge of the territory, he couldn’t let them do that. Ignoring the jolting, bone-rattling impact of each rut in the plain, he altered his own course so that he could stay head-on.

Krysty had maneuvered herself around so that she was facing front. Impact on one rut lifted her from her seat and slammed her against the dash, eliciting a yelp as her ribs felt like they were turning in and spearing her, driving the breath from her body.

Dust clouds from the two wags as they crossed paths and tried to circle back rose in swathes around the vehicles. The choking blanket obscured vision and trapped in throats and noses as it billowed into the glassless windows. Even in an attempt to counter the attack, Ryan might have miscalculated his play. The other wag had glass to keep the dust clouds at bay. They might not be able to see, but at least they weren’t choking.

Ryan tried to guide the wag over the treacherous terrain, but now even his visual guide was gone. In the yellow-ochre dust cloud he could see little more than a yard or two ahead.

Over the whine of their own engine, he could hear a keening note, growing louder, as the coldhearts’ wag bore down on them.

But from where?

TILSON DIDN’T EVEN KNOW what had hit him until it was too late. He’d made it back to the bar, where Ling and Smith were still deep in incoherent discussion, still half badmouthing their baron, and half holding back lest they be overheard and reported. The other drinkers stayed apart and kept their heads down, lost in their own private hells.

Tilson didn’t have to serve another drink between getting back and closing up. These guys didn’t really want to drink anymore, they just didn’t want to go home because of what awaited them, either awake or sleeping.

As he locked up, Tilson was kind of scared about what waited for him when he closed his eyes. Visions of Corden and Demetriou. Maybe of what they might do to him, which made him think a little more of how he felt about the two men: the way they had greeted his information, the way he had been dismissed…. It was not like usual. He couldn’t exactly say what it was that got under his skin, crawling like a roach up and down his spine, making him want to piss with fear. Just a feeling.

It should have made him careful. It should have made him look over his shoulder. But it didn’t. It just wrapped itself around him, making him look inward rather than out. The slightest noise should have made him start.

He didn’t notice Demetriou, waiting in the shadows for him. The young man was going to step out and take him before he had a chance to yell. Seeing how distracted he was, grinning to himself all the while, Demetriou decided to let him pass. Would Tilson spot him? Would he realize? That would make it more fun, like chasing rabbits.

Tilson was oblivious. Demetriou slipped out of the shadow, fell into step behind him. Nothing. He wasn’t even going to jump, turn around in fright, give Demetriou a chance to show how quick he was by cutting him before he could yell. This was boring. He needed to get it done with.

Demetriou quickened his pace and was on Tilson in three steps. One hand snaked around to cover his mouth. The other, holding a sharp blade, slipped up under the ribs at the back, piercing and twisting.

Tilson’s eyes bugged as the pain hit. Any sound was deadened by Demetriou’s hand and the blood that welled in his throat, filling his lungs. Already dark, the night slipped away to black.

Demetriou let Tilson fall back against him. Twisting the blade to break the vacuum of suction, the young man eased it out. He let Tilson slump, his face up, and looked into his eyes. Demetriou laughed softly before he melted back into the shadows, leaving the corpse alone in the alley, barely aware before its chilling that life had been snuffed like a candle.