Baptism Of Rage

Baptism Of Rage
James Axler

The end of the world arrived in a nuclear rush, forging the agonized remains of past and present into a new reality known as Deathlands. Now life is a simple series of rules of survival, where having is better than not having–and anything is worth killing for.But in a world that has seemingly turned against mankind, the possibility of miracles can exist….Of all the resources Ryan Cawdor and his group struggle to recoup, hope for escaping the grim daily life-and-death struggle has suffered most. But now reports of a ville holding the mythical waters of rejuvenation, a fountain of youth, appear to be true, luring Doc and the others on a journey inspired by promise, tainted by mistrust. Hiring on as sec men with a convoy headed to the healing waters of Babyville, the survivors discover the deadly price of immortality.In the Deathlands the future looks like hell–and delivers far worse…

“You strong boys going to help with these chains, or what?”

Ryan and Jak leaped from the wag and followed Mitch into the shed while Annie remained in the passenger seat. Jak glanced back, making sure that the woman wasn’t reaching for the shotgun that was nestled in a rig beside her.

“It’s just through here,” Mitch stated as Ryan trailed him into the shadows of the outbuilding.

The one-eyed man flexed the muscles of his hand, reaching beneath his coat for the holstered SIG-Sauer. He didn’t trust Mitch or the woman, and he cursed himself for getting into this situation. If Mitch could help them, that was fine.

But this felt increasingly wrong.

Baptism of Rage

James Axler

Death Lands

www.mirabooks.co.uk (http://www.mirabooks.co.uk)

Youth is wasted on the young.

—George Bernard Shaw

1856–1950

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 endure—in the way of the lion, the hawk and the tiger, true to nature’s 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 ville’s 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 Ryan’s 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 couldn’t 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: Ryan’s 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 humanity’s last hope….

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

Prologue

The warm autumn sun played across Doc Tanner’s back, but the cold Nebraska air behind it was heavy with the threat of approaching winter. Tanner didn’t mind. There was something enlivening about that chill, the very essence of what it was to be alive seemed contained therein.

Dr. Theophilus Algernon Tanner was a tall man, striking and handsome in his own way. His hair reached down past the collar of his crisp, white shirt, and bright blue eyes peered inquisitively from beneath his high forehead.

He was a man of great learning, with two degrees to his name and a tea chest in his attic that was filled with diplomas and certificates that he had never bothered to display. Tanner knew that the proof of learning couldn’t be found in degrees, wasn’t awarded on slips of paper. Learning was about understanding, about the application of knowledge in new and interesting and remarkable ways.