Lost Gates

Lost Gates
James Axler

Existence after Skydark is a gamble against grim odds–winners and losers decided by guns, jack and raw nerve. Still, one intrepid group pushes on, working to understand the secrets of preDark tech at the heart of nuke-altered America. Because keeping hope alive is the next best thing to a good shot at finding something better.Baron Crabbe is dangerously high on legends of the Trader and rumours of a secret cache. He occupies a redoubt but the old tech remains unfathomable. His ace in the hole is Ryan Cawdor and his band. Prisoners at blaster point, they're ordered to use the matter-transfer units to secure the whereabouts of the imagined weapons stockpile. Ryan knows the truth–and it won't help Crabbe. But the only option is to play along with the crazed Baron's scheme and make the dangerous jumps in a limited window of time. Staying alive is all about buying time–waiting for their one chance to chill their captors.

Ryan touched the wires together

The jolt of electricity made him gasp, and he was thrown backward with a blinding flash of light. The door squealed as the twisted metal tried to move in the straight grooves of the frame.

“Fireblast! I didn’t expect it to hurt like that,” Ryan groaned as he scrambled to his feet. Then he followed Jak’s gaze.

A thin trickle of water was visible, running faster and then furiously down the crack between the two doors.

Without warning, a high-pressure stream of water shot through the gap and caught Ryan in the ribs. The force threw him against the wall of the corridor, and for a moment light exploded around his head.

Then it went black.

Lost Gates

Death Lands

James Axler

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

Fear is a habit; so is self-pity, defeat, anxiety, despair, hopelessness and resignation. You can eliminate all of these negative habits with two simple resolves: I can! and I will!

—Author Unknown

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 Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter One

Ryan Cawdor groaned as he opened his eye. It was gummed, heavy and felt as though a branding iron was being thrust repeatedly into it. Other than that, he was glad to be alive. As always, if he felt this bad, chances were that his opponent had to have come off worse. If he could remember who his opponent was….

At least lacking one eye spared him the pain of double vision. It was a grimly humorous thought that would, under any other circumstances, have made him grin. Not now, though. That would have been a signal to any potential enemy that he had regained consciousness. Besides which, it would have hurt too much. His face felt as though it had been trampled on by a herd of mutie cattle. The type that had razor-sharp hooves.

As the focus of his eye gradually came into some semblance of clear vision, Ryan could see that he and his companions were in a darkened wag. The jolting of the chassis as it bumped over either a rough road surface or a cross-country route jarred his vision, making it hard to pick out detail in the gloom. It also made his body ache. Every muscle and tendon felt rubbery and sensitive to the slightest impact. It felt as though each muscle and tendon had been taken out, rubbed in grit and then carefully replaced. He would have winced, if it wouldn’t have alerted his captors to his conscious state.

Trying to keep as stable as possible, to improve his vision and stop the aches that ran up and down his frame, Ryan cast his eye over the dimmed interior of the wag. It was a basic wag, which looked as if it had been stripped at some point. There were no seats other than the two occupied by the driver and shotgun guard. He could make out three men, all armed with what looked like remade Armalite longblasters, who were hunkered down, backs resting against the shell of the wag. Between them were his companions. Jak, an albino, stood out because of his long white hair. Likewise Doc, whose head was down, his long silver mane shaggy as it banged against the floor of the wag.

With their darker hair and clothing, Krysty, Mildred and J.B. were harder to pick out.