Skydark Spawn

  “Survival of the fittest,” Mildred stated

  “What do you mean?” Ryan asked.

  “There’s something called the principle of natural selection that says the strongest survive, and that a species continues to evolve through natural and sexual selection. The baron’s contest will ensure that the strongest male survives to breed with the strongest female.”

  Ryan nodded, then got up from the table to sign up for the contest. Brody stood, as well.

  “Where are you going?” the one-eyed man asked.

  Brody put a hand on Ryan’s shoulder. “There’ll be at least a dozen men in that ring, all wanting to chill you. If you’re going to make a break out of here, you’re going to have to be alive to do it. You’ll need someone to watch your back, and that’s going to be me.”

  “Thanks, Brody. You’re a good man.”

  “You’re a good man, too, Ryan. Let’s just hope for the sake of your woman that you’re also the best.”

  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

  Sunchild

  Breakthrough

  Salvation Road

  Amazon Gate

  Destiny’s Truth

  JAMES AXLER

  DEATH LANDS®

  Skydark Spawn

  It seems most strange that men should fear;

  Seeing that death, a necessary end

  Will come when it will come.

  —William Shakespeare

  Julius Caesar

  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 Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Epilogue

  Chapter One

  Ryan Cawdor opened his eye, then closed it quickly as a blinding jolt of pain lanced through his skull. He half rose to his feet, then sank back to the floor, dizzy. Bastard jumps always took a toll.

  The mat-trans jump was over, and, as usual, he and his companions lay on the floor of the chamber, trying to gather their wits and keep the remnants of their last meal in their stomachs.

  After a few minutes, Ryan tried opening his eye again. The pain was still there, but had now settled into a dull throb that he could handle.

  “My word,” Doc Tanner said, removing his swallow’s-eye kerchief from a pocket of his frock coat and wiping away a trickle of blood that had seeped from his nose, “it never ceases to amaze me how utterly incapacitating these jaunts of ours can be.”

  “Still able talk,” Jak Lauren commented, lifting his right hand and moving his fingers in a motion meant to simulate Doc’s flapping gums. Jak hadn’t fared as well. The front of the young albino’s tan T-shirt was stained with vomit that had leaked out the corners of his mouth. He tried to clean himself up with a few wipes of his sleeve, but all that did was spread the mess around.

  Ryan’s son, Dean, had fared better than the others. He looked a bit dizzy, but was already able to stand. J. B. Dix sat with his back against one of the chamber’s walls. He’d lifted his head and had his eyes tightly closed as if he were in pain. He was struggling to catch his breath.

  “You all right, J.B.?” asked Ryan.

  The Armorer shook his head as he removed his wire-rimmed glasses from his shirt po
cket and put them on. “Had a nightmare. I was alone in a forest somewhere. As I walked along a path, I was confronted by a huge mutie.”

  “Chill it?” Jak asked.

  “No, that’s the thing. It approached me and I leveled my blaster and squeezed the trigger…but the scattergun didn’t fire. I tried it again and again, but nothing. The creature kept coming, but the blaster wouldn’t fire. Dark night! Didn’t know what was wrong with it because I’d just finished stripping and cleaning it in my dream. So there I was, pointing a dead blaster at a mutie just itching to chill me.”

  “And did it?” Mildred Wyeth asked.

  “Tore me to pieces with a set of talons as long and sharp as my Tekna. And I couldn’t even wake up. Hurt like hell.”

  Ryan looked at Mildred, wondering if the dream meant anything.

  “Performance anxiety,” Mildred stated.

  “What? I don’t have any problems with that.”

  “No, I don’t mean sexual performance, John,” Mildred chided. “Our lives often depend on your knowledge. My guess is that lurking somewhere in your subconscious you have a fear that at some point, when it matters most, you’ll let one of us down.”

  “But I was the one who was chilled.”

  “Yeah, and that’s probably the way you’d want it to happen if it ever did.”

  “Not worry,” Jak said, putting a hand on J.B.’s shoulder. “Not let us down.”

  “Thanks.”

  The few moments Mildred had spent analyzing J.B.’s dream had done wonders to revitalize the group. Krysty Wroth was showing signs of coming around, and the rest of the companions were on their feet but still pretty groggy.

  “I suspect,” Doc said, tapping the silver lion’s-head handle of his swordstick against the walls of the chamber, “that this mat-trans is not constructed of armaglass as is customary.”

  Ryan raised his arm and pounded the butt of his SIG-Sauer against one of the dark charcoal-gray walls. Instead of the familiar tink of reinforced glass, his ears were met with the sound of a dull, hard thud. “Concrete,” he stated.

  “Not only that, but look at the LD button,” J.B. suggested.

  Ryan scanned the walls, realizing that this chamber wasn’t equipped with a Last Destination button. “There is no button,” he said.

  “What does that mean?” Mildred asked.

  “Not sure,” Ryan replied.

  “Maybe it’s a one-way chamber,” J.B. opined.

  “What would you need one of those for?” Mildred asked.

  “Who knows?” J.B. answered. “It’s just a thought.”

  “The motivations of your predark government have baffled me at the best of times,” Doc stated. “Add another puzzle to the file for future reference.”

  Ryan agreed with Doc. Whatever the reason behind this installation’s construction, it would be made clear to them soon enough.

  “At least we’re alive,” Krysty stated.

  Ryan turned and saw that Krysty was stirring. Her sentient hair had unfurled and was now stretching to its full length, falling over her shoulders like red waves. “How are you, lover?”

  “I’ve had worse jumps,” she answered. “Any idea where we might have ended up?”

  Ryan shook his head. It was possible to get an idea of the chamber’s location by the color of its armaglass walls, but they’d never been in this gateway before.

  “I’ll take a reading with my sextant when we get outside,” J.B. said. “Hopefully the skies will be clear.”

  Ryan sat down with his back up against one of the room’s six walls. Now that he knew his companions were all right, he decided to give himself some time to recover from the jump. This one had been easier than most, but he still had a fireblasted headache.

  FIFTEEN MINUTES PASSED before the group had recovered and Ryan could risk opening the chamber door. As they’d learned over time, the friends needed to be on triple alert when entering a redoubt, never knowing who or what lay beyond the door. Anyone or anything could have discovered a break in the solid concrete walls and found a way inside.

  “Triple red, people,” Ryan said, putting his hand on the door. He looked around the group, making sure that each of his friends was prepared for whatever might be out there. Krysty had her Smith & Wesson .38 at the ready, while Doc clutched his LeMat blaster. Mildred had her Czech-built target revolver in her right hand, bracing her right arm at the wrist with her left hand to steady it. J.B. had opted for his scattergun, despite its worrisome malfunction in his dream. Dean leveled his Browning Hi-Power and Jak brought up the rear with his Colt Python. Ryan had his SIG-Sauer ready, but since he was opening the door, it was unlikely he’d be the one taking the first shot in the event of trouble.

  “Ready?” Ryan asked one last time.

  Everyone nodded.

  He opened the door to an empty room.

  After a few moments of tension, the companions relaxed somewhat. The room was small and completely bare. The walls were made of cinder blocks, and the floor and ceiling had been constructed of poured concrete. When the door had opened, a single, naked bulb close to the high ceiling switched on, casting a dim light into the room. The room’s main feature was a concrete staircase that led almost straight up thirty or more feet before terminating at a landing that was about four feet directly below a set of large doors. The doors appeared to serve as a hatchway.

  “What do you make of that?” Ryan asked.

  “Strange,” Jak commented.

  There was no arguing with Jak’s logic. The entrance to the redoubt was like nothing Ryan had seen before.

  “Hey, there isn’t even a handle on the outside of the chamber,” Krysty said.

  Ryan turned to take another look at the chamber and saw that what Krysty had said was true. If they shut the door they wouldn’t be able to use the chamber again.

  “Looks like this really is a one-way chamber,” J.B. said. “And that—” he gestured to the stairway “—looks like the only way out.”

  “Well, if that’s the only way out, we should quit standing around and find out where it goes,” Mildred suggested.

  Without another word Ryan headed up the stairs toward the landing. When he reached it he had to crouch to avoid hitting his head on the doors above them. He signaled the others to join him.

  “What now?” Krysty asked as the rest of the group reached the landing. Only Dean was able to stand up straight, but even he had to duck his head a bit to avoid hitting it against the heavy overhead doors.

  Ryan pushed his right forearm against one of the doors. It didn’t budge. For the second try he put away his SIG-Sauer and pushed against the door with both arms. This time the door moved slightly.

  “J.B. and Jak, one on either side of me,” Ryan said.

  The Armorer and the albino took up positions to Ryan’s left and right and got ready to push on the door. The rest of the group readied their blasters.

  “On three,” Ryan said. “One, two…”

  On three they all pushed together. The door moved, and they could hear the metal hinges cracking, an understandable protest considering the hinges likely hadn’t moved in close to a century.

  “Again,” Ryan urged.

  Once more the three men pushed against the metal door. At last it began to move, allowing dirt, dust and daylight to spill down through the long crack that had opened up above them. They continued to push, but now Doc had joined them, giving just the little extra force they needed to get the door fully open.

  The portal became lighter and lighter, then flopped over like a top hatch on a war wag. With the first door opened, they set to work on the second. It moved more easily than the first, and they soon found themselves standing at the edge of a long-abandoned farmer’s field, with nothing around them but knee-high grass, high stands of rocks and clumps of weeds covering acres of rolling land in every direction.

  Ryan and the others took a look around. A stand of trees grew some fifty yards to their left, but mostly they saw only wide-open
spaces. Farther on, perhaps a mile or two away, there were more wooded areas, and then more farmland.

  “Any idea where we are now?” Krysty asked.

  J.B. lowered his glasses. “Middle of nowhere’d be my guess.”

  Ryan climbed up and out of the hole in the ground and onto the field. He immediately turned back to help lift out the others. In minutes they were all standing on firm ground.

  “Close it up,” the one-eyed man ordered, putting a hand under the edge of one of the doors. With J.B.’s help, he lifted the door and let it fall. He hadn’t intended for it to make such a loud noise as it closed, but without anyone on the landing to ease the door into place, the noise couldn’t be helped. Jak and Doc lifted the second door and let it down on top of the first. It closed with a slightly smaller bang, but still one loud enough to attract attention.

  With the doors closed, the exit to the gateway was nearly invisible. The ground was disturbed slightly, but after a few sweeps of their feet and hands, there was no evidence of anything unusual lying just beneath the surface of the field.

  “Well, it’s definitely one-way,” J.B. said.

  “Mebbe for escape,” Jak offered.

  An escape hatch was definitely a possibility. That seemed to fit with the sparseness of the installation’s construction and outfitting. Anyone coming through this gateway was on a one-way trip, but why would such an installation be needed, and why here? Both questions, like all the others, Ryan knew, would be answered in time.

  “By the Three Kennedys!” Doc thundered.

  Ryan turned in time to see Doc’s feet being pulled out from under him by a strange mutie that had apparently crawled through the grass toward them. It was crouched low to the ground and seemed to move on all fours, like a spider. It was gnawing on Doc’s leg, trying to tear away the material of his pants in order to get at the pale white flesh that lay beneath.

  Before the other members of the group could raise their weapons, Ryan had leveled his blaster and squeezed off a single shot that caught the mutie in the shoulder. The impact of the blast rolled the mutie away from Doc’s leg. As the one-eyed man prepared to get off a second shot at the mutie’s skull, a blaster roared on his right.

  A neat black hole appeared in the middle of the mutant’s forehead, and a baseball-sized mass of gray matter and gore exploded out the back of the creature’s skull, taking its miserable life along with it.