Sunchild
After an atomic blast hurled the world into an uncertain future, the past still reaches out in hope…and damnation. In a kill-or-die world, one steadfast group of survivors possesses superior fighting skills and sense of fair play that have made them living legends. In their struggle to seek a better way of life, they are unravelling the powerful secrets of the hell on earth called Deathlands.A pre-dark legacy of shattering promise lies beneath the ruins of nuke-ravaged Seattle. Ryan Cawdor and his warrior companions come face-to-face with the ancestors of a secret society whose members were convinced that paradise awaited at the centre of the earth. This cult is inexorably tied to a conspiracy of twentieth-century scientists devoted to fulfilling a vision of genetic manipulation. In this labyrinthine ville, carved from the subterranean passages of a doomed past, some of the descendants of the Illuminated Ones are pursuing the dream of their legacy–while others are dedicated to its nightmare. Even in the Deathlands, twisted human beliefs endure….
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Doc probed deeper
âThe question remains unanswered. Is there any of the poisonous old tech still on the premises, the rancid remnants of a bygone and perhaps best forgotten age? Some relic of that pernicious evil known as the Totality Concept?â
Doc hadnât idly brought up the name of the Totality Concept. He had spoken the name in the hopes of eliciting some kind of reaction.
The baron hadnât recognized the name at all, and had seemed genuine in his bemusement at the use of the term. But then, Doc hadnât been watching the baron. His eyes had been kept firmly on Jenna, and he had seen her sharp features harden as the words were spoken. The raven eyes had fixed on him, met his full on and tried to fathom his intent.
There was old tech here. Old tech related to secret government projects of the past. And maybe there was something that would link this ville to the main body of the Illuminated Ones, and the place in the North they were searching for.
Other titles in the Deathlands saga:
Pilgrimage to Hell
Red Holocaust
Neutron Solstice
Crater Lake
Homeward Bound
Pony Soldiers
Dectra Chain
Ice and Fire
Red Equinox
Northstar Rising
Time Nomads
Latitude Zero
Seedling
Dark Carnival
Chill Factor
Moon Fate
Furyâs Pilgrims
Shockscape
Deep Empire
Cold Asylum
Twilight Children
Rider, Reaper
Road Wars
Trader Redux
Genesis Echo
Shadowfall
Ground Zero
Emerald Fire
Bloodlines
Crossways
Keepers of the Sun
Circle Thrice
Eclipse at Noon
Stoneface
Bitter Fruit
Skydark
Demons of Eden
The Mars Arena
Watersleep
Nightmare Passage
Freedom Lost
Way of the Wolf
Dark Emblem
Crucible of Time
Starfall
Encounter: Collectorâs Edition
Gemini Rising
Gaiaâs Demise
Dark Reckoning
Shadow World
Pandoraâs Redoubt
Rat King
Zero City
Savage Armada
Judas Strike
Shadow Fortress
Sunchild
DEATH LANDS®
James Axler
â¦there have always been secrets, and there has always been power. Itâs just that some of it has been out in the open, and some of it has been in the shadows. Thatâs the worstâyou can never be sure whatâs going on in the shadows. That twilight world where there are only half-truths and half-lies, and no such thing as trust.
âFrom a report to a Congress Committee on hidden cabals and covert operations,
August 23, 1954
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
Chapter One
Ryan Cawdor opened his eye.
A sharp, stabbing pain shot through his head, piercing to the back of his brain like a red-hot needle pushed through the center of that diamond-hard blue orb.
No matter how many times he made the jump using the mat-trans, no matter how often he steeled himself for the inevitable agonies of recovery and regaining consciousness, it still amazed him that it could hurt so much. Heâd lost count of the number of times his scarred and pitted torso had been injured in combat, racked with pain in torture; still, any of that seemed preferable, right now, to the agonies of regaining full consciousness after a jump.
Ryanâs muscled body, honed by years of travel and combat, trained to cope with a harsh existence, complained in no uncertain manner as he rose from his prone position onto one elbow. His curly black hair, matted with sweat, hung down over his active eye and the empty socket, protected by a patch and scored by a long, livid and puckered scar.
