Vengeance Trail
As megalomaniac barons and savage anarchy compete to lay claim to post-nuclear America, perseverance and a will to live are what keep Ryan Cawdor and his band of warrior survivalists roving through the worst and best of a new world. Armed with secrets of pre-Dark tech, they possess what few in Deathlands can imagine: hope for a better tomorrow.Ryan Cawdor is gunned down and left for dead by the new provisional U.S. Army, commanded by a brilliant general with a propensity for casual mass murder and a vision to rebuild America. Waging war from his pre-Dark, fusion-powered armoured locomotive, he's poised to unlock the secrets of the Gateways–as the rest of Ryan's group stand powerless. All except one. Hope may be lost for Krysty Wroth. But revenge is enough. In the Deathlands, vengeance is the only justice.
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Her desire for vengeance was an unwavering flame
But even if Krysty had known beyond doubt her bullet would split that dark-haired skull, she wouldnât have taken the shot. Yes, the captain had to die. She had to kill him, or at least be the cause of his death even if her finger didnât pull the trigger or her hand plunge the blade.
But he was just one among many. A significant one, but merely one. To claim his life would risk throwing her life awayâwith her friends still unrescued and the bulk of her blood debt unpaid.
Krysty wouldnât do that.
So she watched them drive off out of sight, unmolested. Intuition told her they were heading back to the massacre site, to the rim above Ryanâs unmarked resting place a mile toward the center of the earth. Why they might be bound there she couldnât say. It didnât matter, and speculation was no part of her nature in any event. She let all thought of whys and wherefores slip from her mind.
There could be only her quest. Worry, fear, anticipationâthese could only weaken the resolve Krysty needed to keep her weary legs driving her relentlessly on.
Other titles in the Deathlands saga:
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
Breakthrough
Salvation Road
Amazon Gate
Destinyâs Truth
Skydark Spawn
Damnation Road Show
Devil Riders
Bloodfire
Hellbenders
Separation
Death Hunt
Shaking Earth
Black Harvest
Vengeance Trail
DEATH LANDS ®
James Axler
Like to the Pontick sea,
Whose icy current and compulsive course
Neâer feels retiring ebb, but keeps due on
To the Propontic and the Hellspont,
Even so my bloody thoughts, with violent pace,
Shall neâer look back, neâer ebb to humble love,
Till that a capable and wide revenge
Swallow them up.
âWilliam Shakespeare,
Othello, III, iv, 454
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 hopeâ¦.
Contents
Chapter One
J. B. Dix chewed a dust-dry blade of buffalo grass and leaned back against the wag, its sun-heated metal pinging as it cooled in the breeze. Beneath the low-tipped brim of his fedora, he watched a little girl named Sallee, scabbed legs splayed in the dust by the track, as she played with a flop-eared, vaguely humanoid bundle of rags.
âWhat do you reckon that thing is, anyway, Jak?â he asked his companion, who perched on the wagâs hood walking a short leaf-bladed throwing knife along the backs of his bone-white fingers. âRabbit or mutie?â
