âWhat was that half-wit talking about?â
Mildred was enraged. âWhy the hell did he take Krysty away?â
Doc smiled sadly. âBecause, my dear doctor, I fear that like so many of us, he may not be exactly of sound mind.â
âA crazy. Great,â Jak snorted.
Docâs smile broadened. âI think you may have missed my point, dear boy. If he has this one aim in mindâthat Krysty become converted to his cause in order to convert usâthen he will do all within his power to keep her alive and well. Itâs in his best interest. And, of course, he is unwittingly buying us time to find and destroy him.â
âHeâs going to be looking for us sooner or later, right?â J.B. pointed out.
âExactly,â Doc agreed. âThe irony is that he has mistaken our pragmatism for a sense of spurious justice, and faith in a law that no longer exists. A misunderstanding that will lead him straight back to us. In a sense, we have no need to chase him. He will come to us.â
Ryanâs face split into a grin for the first time since theyâd lost Krysty. âGuess youâre right, Doc. But letâs go after the coldheart anyway.â
He that has and a little tiny wit,
With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,
Must make content with his fortunes fit,
Though the rain it raineth every day.
âWilliam Shakespeare
King Lear, III, ii, 76
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¦.
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
Thunder Rider rides again!
With a full-throttled roar from the throat of his magnificent iron steed, the masked avenger, the seeker of justice, the righter of wrongs, roared into the small town. Villainy trembled beneath his iron heel, and those with much to fear fled in abject terror at his approach.
There was much wrong with this town. For too long the forces of lawlessness had held sway over the land, allowing evil to flourish. He could see it in the faces of those he passed as they leveled their weapons, turning with the following wind of his trusty machine, their aim arcing to follow and intercept its trajectory. He narrowed his eyes against the slipstream of the wind, even though the thick Plexiglas goggles protected them. It was more an indication of his steely and grim determination as his face set into a mask of fury.
He threw the motorcycle into a skid, one hand diving to the battered leather holsterâinherited from those who had rode this path beforeâand freeing the .44 Magnum gun he used for maximum effect. It wasnât just the damage inflicted by the bullets, it was the mighty roar of the weapon that struck fear into the hearts of those who dared oppose him. With his free hand he gripped the specially modified steering, power-assisted to be as light as the softest down to his touch. The bike responded to the featherâs breath of movement, the tonnage of screaming hot metal beneath him scoring an arc of dirt that flew up into a blinding shower, acting as a screen to the full angle of his turn.
As the way in front of him cleared, he saw the first of the coldhearted villains standing before him, defiant, aiming a long-barreled rifle in his direction. Without pause, without even the need to register and react, he squeezed the trigger of the .44, the gun bucking and rearing in his hand, the shock of recoil absorbed by the whipcord tendons of his wrist.