James Axler - Deathlands 10 Northstar Rising

/* /*]] */ d14 "Mutie ants!" Ryan yelled. "Our only hope is the tree."

The horrifying creatures were more than a foot long, and their mandibles were huge, disproportionate even to their grotesquely mutated size. Longer than a man's finger, they clicked together in a deafening warning as the ants became aware of the six companions.As Ryan load the charge, the front row of insects retreated, then regrouped in a solid phalanx of glittering death.To hesitate was to die.The crunching of delicate skeletons beneath boot heels almost drowned out the clicking jaws. Ryan could now see the main body of the killer army beyond the mangrove, and not an inch of ground was free of the iridescent horde that swept toward him.Ryan gained the mangrove. Several low branches were within easy reach, and he made a running dive, swinging to safety with prehensile agility. When he was four feet above the carpet of ants, the one-eyed man finally looked for his friends. All were winning the desperate race. Except the old man.Then, only a few strides from safety, Doc Tanner stumbled A GOLD EAGLE BOOK FROM WORLDWIDETORONTO NEW YORK LONDON PARIS AMSTERDAM STOCKHOLM HAMBURG ATHENS MILAN TOKYO SYDNEYThis one is for Angus Wellswho has been, and still is,one of the very best of friends.All good things.First edition December 1989 ISBN 0-373-62510-3Copyright 1989 by Worldwide Library. Philippine copyright 1989. Australian copyright 1989.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 permission of the publisher, Worldwide Library, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.All the 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 the incidents are pure invention.are Trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office and in other countries.Printed in U.S.A.There's night and day, brother, both sweet things; sun, moon, and stars, brother, all sweet things; there's likewise a wind on the heath. Life is very sweet, brother; who would wish to die?Lavengro by George Barrow BLACK.Blackness.Blackness.Laughter.The hands on his throat remorselessly strong.Someone laughed.A voice breathed in Ryan's ear. "You who are about to die"Pocked skin.Circle of silver and bald head.A smell of burned cloth and hair.MAJOR COMMISSAR Gregori Zimyanin, of the Internal Security Section of Moscow, felt as though someone had pushed a brass-hilted bayonet into the center of his skull, then stirred it around, puddling his brains. The Russian was immensely strong, and he was recovering from the jump with remarkable speed.As consciousness began to creep back into the blurred fringes of his mind, so shards of memory also lurched out into the open. There had been a dreadful firefight, with many corpses; a body of one of the enemy, flaming like a beacon of defiance; the Yank flag; a winding staircase, shrouded in choking smoke.The brawl had ended with swirling blackness and his fingers clawing at the throat of the leader of the terrorists. With a massive effort of will, Zimyanin managed to open his eyes.Something was wrong. Something had changed in the glass-walled chamber. The colors had altered and the air tasted different. The thick choking smoke was gone, and the air was thin and cold. The Russian had lived at altitude in winter and knew the sensation well. Somehow, while they were all unconscious, the Americans had succeeded in transporting the whole mysterious complex to a mountain.In his attempts to master the language of his bitter enemies, the officer had been secretly learning the English tongue, using a book with a publication date of 1911, nearly two hundred years earlier The English Tongue for the Benefit of the Russian Gentleman Abroad."I beg your pardon, but could you inform me as to the whereabouts of my entourage?" he whispered through dry lips.Where could all of his men have gone? Dozens of troops couldn't just disappear into space. He fumbled for the pistol at his belt, feeling the familiar shape of the 9 mm Makarov blaster.Now his eyes were focusing, settling on something opposite him that was colored dazzling white and vivid crimson."By the anvil and the hammer," Zimyanin muttered.It was a young, skinny albino boy, his hair like the tumbled snow around the hamlet of Ozhbarchik in the far, far northeast. A thread of fresh blood inched from the lad's nose, his mouth sagged open and his eyes were shut tight.Next to him lay an old man with wild, silver hair, clutching a small, unconscious puppy.A woman with hair as red as blazing pitch was stretched flat on the floor, but she was moving, fingers opening and closing as she approached consciousness.Ryan Cawdor blinked, opening his one good eye. The patch over his ruined left eye had shifted during the fight with the Russian, and he lifted a hand to straighten it.And saw Zimyanin.The stocky Russian was crouched on the far side of the gateway chamber, like a beast waiting to spring. His heavy features were smeared with soot, and a worm of dried blood from the corner of his mouth had clotted in his drooping mustache."Bastard," Ryan said quietly. His own blaster, the 9 mm SIG-Sauer P-226, was bolstered in his belt and he began to reach for it.Zimyanin had a glacial moment of frozen time to make up his mind. Somehow the Americans had disposed of his men and moved him to a different location. The one-eyed killer was fumbling for his pistol, and at least one of the others was coming around from the sleeping gas. Or whatever it was they'd used to knock everyone out.He made his decision, diving for the door to the glass-walled room. If he was to escape this could be his best and only chance.A hand grabbed at Zimyanin's ankle, and he kicked out, his heavy, ash-crusted boot hitting Jak Lauren on the side of his pale skull. The fingers relaxed their grip and the Russian was at the door.Ryan's pistol had cleared its rig and his finger was tightening on the trigger when the Russian darted through the doorway. There was a glimpse of the room beyond, then the door slammed shut."Fireblast," Ryan cursed. "He's triggered the jump mechanism again. Everyone down and get ready."Already the disks in floor and ceiling were glowing, and a ragged spray of gas was filling the octagonal room.Zimyanin hesitated outside the gateway chamber, puzzled by what he saw. There was a small room, with a larger room visible beyond it, behind a barred door. The wall to his left had broken down into fragments of powdered rock. But the peculiar thing was that the floor and walls were covered with a thin layer of pinkish slime.And there was a gut-churning smell of sickly decay.An urgent, rustling sound emerged from beyond the broken wall. Coming toward him.Ryan was slipping into unconsciousness again, struggling to keep a hold on his pistol. His mind tried to blank out the bizarre appearance and disappearance of the Russian sec man.He could hear someone in the chamber making coughing, choking sounds, but there was nothing he could do to help. The floor was vibrating beneath him, and he could feel a rumbling, clear through the marrow of his bones. The heavy blaster dropped from his fingers and clanged on the metal plates with a harsh echo that seemed to go on and on.Beyond the thick arma-glass walls, Ryan thought he could just make out the figure of Zimyanin. But his vision was blurring and nothing was certain,There seemed to be the crack of an automatic pistol, flat and sudden, a yell, starting off with surprise and shrilling quickly into raw terror.Another shot.A third.The yell had become a scream, high and thin like a stallion at the gelding.As blackness gripped him, Ryan's last doubtful vision was of something moving beyond the walls of the gateway, something that was pale yellow and immeasurably huge. Next page