Dark Resurrection

Dark Resurrection
James Axler

Postnuclear America has changed little since the primal leveling of the twenty-first century. Warrior survivalists Ryan Cawdor and his band live by a code that honors the kind of absolute freedom only a raw frontier can provide.Until rumors of a wider, more prosperous world than the Deathlands thriving deep in Mexico, untouched by the nukecaust, lure them into uncharted waters….Captured by the pirate foot soldiers of the mysterious Lords of Death, Ryan Cawdor and his companions sail into a surreal world where electric lights blaze but blood terror reigns. In Veracruz, Mexico, Ryan is marked for slaughter, his effigy linked to an ancient deity. Helpless, Krysty, Dix and the others await a horrifying fate at the hands of whitecoats manipulating pre-dark plague warfare. As the Lords of Death unleash their demonic vision, hope–for Ryan, the others and nascent civilization–appears irrevocably lost.

The piles of corpses and severed hearts grew

Realizing what was coming, the slaves struggled futilely with their bonds, weeping and begging their captors for mercy.

All but the companions.

Jak, Krysty, Mildred, Doc, and J.B. were staring at Ryan. Their fixed, defiant expressions all said the same thing: we’re not going to check out like that. Not like chickens on the chopping block.

The one-eyed warrior nodded in agreement, then he looked away. If they couldn’t escape, they could do the next best thing. They could take out as many of the bastards as possible before they were cut down.

Ryan Cawdor withdrew deep into the core of his being, shutting out the grisly sights and sounds around him. He wasn’t preparing himself to die, he was preparing to fight and chill to his last ounce of strength. To expend it all, here, now. And when that strength was gone, death could nukin’ well have him, ready or not. It took only a moment for him to make the attitude shift. It was like a gate swinging open.

And when it was done, Ryan felt a sense of freedom and power.

Dark Resurrection

James Axler

Death Lands

EMPIRE OF

XIBALBA

BOOK II

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

Special thanks to John Todd, Jr., for the insights he so graciously shared about the geography, history and culture of Veracruz, Mexico, and for his Web site’s excellent collection of maps and photographs.

Every parting gives a foretaste of death; every coming together again a foretaste of the resurrection.

—Arthur Schopenhauer, 1788–1860

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