Vengeance Trail. James Axler

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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 wouldn’t 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 didn’t 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 away—with her friends still unrescued and the bulk of her blood debt unpaid.

      Krysty wouldn’t 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 Ryan’s unmarked resting place a mile toward the center of the earth. Why they might be bound there she couldn’t say. It didn’t 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, anticipation—these 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

      Fury’s 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:

      Collector’s Edition

      Gemini Rising

      Gaia’s Demise

      Dark Reckoning

      Shadow World

      Pandora’s Redoubt

      Rat King

      Zero City

      Savage Armada

      Judas Strike

      Shadow Fortress

      Sunchild

      Breakthrough

      Salvation Road

      Amazon Gate

      Destiny’s 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

      Ne’er feels retiring ebb, but keeps due on

      To the Propontic and the Hellspont,

      Even so my bloody thoughts, with violent pace,

      Shall ne’er look back, ne’er ebb to humble love,

      Till that a capable and wide revenge

      Swallow them up.

      —William 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 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

       Chapter One

       Chapter Two

       Chapter Three

       Chapter Four

       Chapter Five