Plague Lords
After a century of chaos following the nukes, Deathlands is forming pockets of civilization, aided by preDark stockpiles of weapons, fuel and pieces of 21st-century knowledge. But these troves are hard to come by, and survival remains a blood quest.For Ryan Cawdor and his warrior survivalists, luck is sparse, chances slimmer, yet hope drives them onward.The sulphur-teeming Gulf of Mexico is the poisoned end of the earth, but loaded cargo ships ruined by skydark lure doomie and cutthroat alike. Here, Ryan and the others glean rumours of whole cities deep in South America that survived the blast intact. But as the companions contemplate a course of action that may divide them, a new horror approaches unseen on the horizon. The Lords of Death are Mexican pirates raiding stockpiles with a grim vengeance. When civilization hits rock bottom, a new stone age will emerge, with its own personal day of blood reckoning.In the Deathlands, the future could always be worse. Now it is…
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âThis could change all our lives for the better,â Mildred said.
âIf thereâs another world out there, an unnuked world, maybe we wouldnât want to come back.â
âMebbe you wouldnât want to come back,â Krysty said.
âIf youâve got big love in your heart for Deathlands because you were born here, thatâs your business,â Mildred told her. âFrom what Iâve seen, Iâd say all the hellscape does is kick our asses.â
âAnd what if the captain isnât telling us the whole truth?â Krysty said.
âA guy doesnât survive solo without having some neat tricks up his sleeve,â J.B. said with confidence.
Ryan held up his hands. âItâs about the devil we know versus the devil we donât. The familiar, bad as it is, is still familiar. We can pretty much reckon how weâre gonna die. Starvation. Thirst. Gutshot. Ate by some mutie. I donât particularly care where I croak or how.â
âSo youâre for taking this pipe-dream trip and mebbe never coming back?â Krysty said, aghast.
Plague Lords
Death Lands>®
I will ransom them from the power of the grave; I will redeem them from death: O death, I will be thy plagues; O grave, I will be thy destruction.
âThe Holy Bible,
Book of Daniel
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 endureâin the way of the lion, the hawk and the tiger, true to natureâs 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 villeâs 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 Ryanâs 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 couldnât 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: Ryanâs 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 humanityâs last hope.â¦
Contents
Prologue
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 Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Prologue
When a mosquito speared Okie Moore right between the eyes, he deftly squashed it against his forehead. Blood from the bugâs crushed abdomen trickled in a cool bead down the side of his nose. He wiped it across his cheek with the back of his hand, smearing a fresh daub of red into the impasto of squashed bodies, legs, wingsâtiny gobs of black mush trapped in the hairs of his beard. A cloud of bugs wheeled around his head; mosquitos broke formation and dive-bombed him in waves, trying to get at his earlobes, but they were protected by his greasy, shoulder-length hair.
Okie ignored the shrill, singsong whine and concentrated on the Fire Talkerâs rapid flow of words and exaggerated gestures. They were the eveningâs featured entertainment. The young âuns squatting in the sand next to him moved a dozen steps to the right, into the shifting river of smoke that poured off the communal bonfireâthe skeeter No Fly Zone.
The air this particular evening was heavy with bugs and moisture, that and the smothering heat made deep breathing difficult. Circled around the campfire were more than two hundred filthy people in brand-new, matching clothing. The men, women and older children wore baggy, gaudy Hawaiian-style shirts and shorts, still creased from the packaging, and gleaming white high-top basketball shoes. The toe boxes of the womenâs and kidsâ shoes were crammed with rags to make them fit. They looked like a band of homeless who had just looted a Wal-Mart summer clearance sale, or a gathering of Jimmy Buffett impersonators.
These Deathlanders werenât homeless, though, and they werenât defenseless. Well-oiled AKMs, semi-auto pistols, slide-action shotguns and heavy machine guns all stood close to hand, shoulder slung or holstered, or tripod swivel-mounted to spray 180 degrees of water approach with predark alloys of lead.
