Sunspot

Sunspot
James Axler

In the wake of a nuclear Armageddon, the hellscape of Deathlands conspires to torment strong and weak alike, festering most deeply in those who still possess the deepest core of human decency. Now the past lies in the ashes, while the mysteries of the future unfold in the hands of those willing to live each new day in search of hope for tomorrow.The endless struggle for power among the barons is a way of life in Deathlands, but Ryan Cawdor and his warrior survivalists take no sides–unless forced to. But as the land around the Rio Grande reaches the breaking point in a bitter war, the companions are harnessed into battle, moving toward a grim confrontation with an old enemy whose secret stockpile of twenty-first-century nerve gas is poised to unleash infinite madness once more upon a ravaged earth.In the Deathlands,history readies to repeat itself…

Sunspot

Death Lands

James Axler

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

Contents

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

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter One

Ryan Cawdor stood out of the line of fire, his back pressed against a mud-brick wall. The ground was partially frozen underfoot, the early morning sky streaked with scudding low clouds. Gusts of wind shrieked through the ramshackle hilltop maze of Redbone ville, drowning out the screams of the dying.

A makeshift barricade of rocks and dirt and tree limbs stood less than one hundred feet from Ryan’s position. It blocked the entrance to a narrow path that was the ville’s only remaining escape route. The blue-less sights and muzzles of three AK-47s poked out through firing ports, gaps in the layers of piled debris.

From the opposite direction, near the center of the pesthole ville, a frantic flurry of gunshots rang out. With black powder revolvers and remade single-shot 12-gauges, Redbone’s trapped residents fought off a superior force. The resistance was answered by short, efficient bursts of heavy-caliber autofire.

Time was running out, for all concerned.

Ryan stepped from cover, his scoped Steyr SSG-70 longblaster slung over his shoulder, a SIG-Sauer P226 semiautomatic blaster securely holstered under his left armpit. With empty hands in plain view, he advanced up the rutted path, past a rude stock pen on his right, toward the waist-high, twelve-foot-long barricade. A blast of wind scoured the frosty earth, whipping up the stench of pig manure. The pigs themselves were nowhere to be seen, but mounds of loose droppings lay scattered over the track.

The worn AK sights held steady on his chest as he closed the distance, walking straight into the maw of a firing squad. Fifty feet. Forty feet. The adrenaline coursing through his veins made his fingertips tingle and his scalp crawl. The empty socket of his left eye began to itch like a rad bastard under its black patch. The sensation spread along the jagged welt of scar that split his brow and cheek. Ryan didn’t scratch. He kept his hands in sight, well away from his body.

“Stop there!” someone shouted from behind the barrier.

Ryan kept walking, spreading his arms wide, displaying open palms in a gesture of surrender.

“Stop or you’re dead!”

Ryan was betting they wouldn’t shoot unless he made a move for his blasters. Baron Malosh paid his press gangs by the head. The live head. This crew’s job was to capture or to turn back any ville folk trying to escape conscription into the baron’s army. To Malosh even a one-eyed man had value, if only as cannon fodder.