James Axler - Deathlands 60 Destinys Truth

Ryan leaped from his seat, fighting the jolt caused by the wag's halted momentum

He threw himself backward, barely keeping his balance as he reached the tail end of the wag. The sec door crushed the roof of the wag at the front, driving metal down onto the seat where he had sat a few moments before.

Ryan jumped from the wag and ran for cover, joining Krysty, Tammy and Mildred.

"Glad you could drop in, lover," Krysty said dryly.

"Just had a few things to do," he replied laconically.

He saw that the crushed wagdriven down with such force that the rear wheels had left the groundheld the sec door open for a gap of three or four feet. There was little indication of whether or not the Illuminated sec beyond were still in cover, or whether they had retreated.

Looking back, he could see through the open outer door, into the dawn light beyond.

The larger war party was advancing.

A GOLD EAGLE BOOK FROM WORLDWIDE

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If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as "unsold and destroyed" to the publisher, and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this "stripped book."

First edition December 2002

ISBN 0-373-62570-7

DESTINY'S TRUTH

Copyright 2002 by Worldwide Library.

All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher, Worldwide Library, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.

All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.

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Victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror,
Victory however long and hard the road may be; for
Without victory there is no survival.

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 endurein 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

"Jak Jak, honey, time to wake up"

Jak Lauren opened his red, sore eyes, feeling the earth spin away under him as he did so. A mat-trans jump always left him feeling weak and sick, his stomach muscles cramping to make him vomit substance where there was none. He spread his hands out to grasp the smooth armaglass floor of the chamber, expecting the cold and solid material to cool his fevered palms.

But there was no armaglass; instead, registering with a ringing alarm bell in his still befuddled mind, there was warm, clammy dirt beneath his hands. His instincts fighting the jump sickness, he tried to raise himself on his elbows, his vision clearing the fog before him.

Was it Gloria looking down at him?

"Hey, honey, don't look so startled," the Gate queen said before drawing back a little so that Jak was able to see that they were now in the open air.

The albino youth's senses began to cut into the confusion that had clouded him since awakening. He could smell the rich loam beneath him, soft and springy as Gloria stepped back. They were in a small clearing, surrounded by trees that looked like dwarfed and stunted elms, but in full leaf for all that. He could hear the hum of insects, and the rustles in among the undergrowth of small mammalsnothing big enough to be a threat, his senses told him. Normally, this would have made him relax, but in his bewildered state, his muscles remained tense, his attention struggling to focus as rapidly as possible.

Where he would normally spring to his feet with a lithe ease, Jak found himself struggling to hoist himself upright. His limbs were still tingling from the aftereffects of the jump, and refused to obey the impulses from his brain.

"Not right" he said in a hoarse whisper. "Should be in mat-trans, not here. And Ryan? Others?"

He was now on his feet, clearing his head with a tentative shake that made his focus blur and the earth spin again for a second before it settled.

Gloria was now about twenty yards away from him, with her back turned toward him. There were marks on her skin that he couldn't identify from this distance, but it seemed like a patchwork of dark dots that randomly spread across her bared skin, disappearing under the long, flaming red tresses that hung down her back.

"You feeling better now, sweets?" she asked, her husky voice low and yet carrying that melodious note that he knew so well by now. It was good to hear her. The last thing Jak remembered was the Gate tribe entering the other mat-trans chamber in the redoubt before they were flung to who knew where. There had been no guarantee that they would end up in the same place, given the unreliability of the old tech.

But if they were here, where were the rest of the companions? And where was Gloria's faithful attendant, Tammy, and the rest of the Gate tribe?

Even as that flickered across his mind, Jak was sniffing the air, attuning his hearing to the slightest sound around, attempting to identify its source.

There was no one else around, no one human, that was, nothing but the smaller forms of wildlife that he had detected earlier.

"You're not talking to me," Gloria admonished. "Why not?"

"Not right," Jak repeated, almost to himself.

"What isn't right?" she asked. Jak prickled as she spoke. There was something in her tone that had suddenlyfor no apparent reasonturned hostile, and he was sure now that something was very wrong.