âSurvival of the fittest,â Mildred stated
âWhat do you mean?â Ryan asked.
âThereâs something called the principle of natural selection that says the strongest survive, and that a species continues to evolve through natural and sexual selection. The baronâs contest will ensure that the strongest male survives to breed with the strongest female.â
Ryan nodded, then got up from the table to sign up for the contest. Brody stood, as well.
âWhere are you going?â the one-eyed man asked.
Brody put a hand on Ryanâs shoulder. âThereâll be at least a dozen men in that ring, all wanting to chill you. If youâre going to make a break out of here, youâre going to have to be alive to do it. Youâll need someone to watch your back, and thatâs going to be me.â
âThanks, Brody. Youâre a good man.â
âYouâre a good man, too, Ryan. Letâs just hope for the sake of your woman that youâre also the best.â
It seems most strange that men should fear;
Seeing that death, a necessary end
Will come when it will come.
âWilliam Shakespeare
Julius Caesar
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 hopeâ¦.
Ryan Cawdor opened his eye, then closed it quickly as a blinding jolt of pain lanced through his skull. He half rose to his feet, then sank back to the floor, dizzy. Bastard jumps always took a toll.
The mat-trans jump was over, and, as usual, he and his companions lay on the floor of the chamber, trying to gather their wits and keep the remnants of their last meal in their stomachs.
After a few minutes, Ryan tried opening his eye again. The pain was still there, but had now settled into a dull throb that he could handle.
âMy word,â Doc Tanner said, removing his swallowâs-eye kerchief from a pocket of his frock coat and wiping away a trickle of blood that had seeped from his nose, âit never ceases to amaze me how utterly incapacitating these jaunts of ours can be.â