Shadow Fortress. James Axler

on>

      

      “We will not leave those clouds alive,” Doc warned

      Ryan drew his blaster and started firing, the red-hot rounds easily punching through the tough polymer and deflating the balloons.

      “Water!” Krysty called out, pointing ahead.

      There was a wide break in the stygian forest, a calm river that traversed the valley floor. Their target was a slim area of flat mud between the rocks, impossible to hit at their current speed.

      “That’s our best chance,” Ryan shouted, slashing at the side ropes. “Wait for it.…Now!” In unison the companions dived from the pallet, and a split second later the Pegasus rammed into the trees and was torn apart by a thousand sharp branches.

      Only the babbling of the shallow river disturbed the heavy silence. Then swatches of light bobbed through the darkness, and armed men stepped from the bushes along the riverbank to approach the still figures sprawled in the bloody mud.

      Other titles in the Deathlands saga:

      Pilgrimage to Hell

      Red Holocaust

      Neutron Solstice

      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

      DEATH LANDS®

      James Axler

      To Rich Tucholka, a good friend, and a good man

      Storm’d at with shot and shell,

      While horse and hero fell,

      They that had fought so well

      Came thro’ the jaws of Death,

      Back from the mouth of Hell,

      All that was left of them…

      —Alfred, Lord Tennyson

      1809–1892

      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

       Chapter Six

       Chapter Seven

       Chapter Eight

       Chapter Nine

       Chapter Ten

       Chapter