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Ritual Chill
James Axler
Time, and the fallout of a nuclear holocaust, have ravaged 21st century America, but one fundamental impulse of human nature remains: the will to survive. And only the strongest do survive.Men like Ryan Cawdor, whose inner strength and stubborn resolve continue to defy the worst that Deathlands offers. With grim determination, he and his warrior group continue to face the stark and brutal choices of this new world that are often not choices at all, but imperatives. Act first, ask questions later.A cold sense of déjà vu becomes reality as the group emerges from a gateway they'd survived before–a grim graveyard of lost friends and nightmares. The consuming need to escape the dangerous melancholy of the place forces Ryan and company onto the frozen tundra, where an even greater menace awaits. The forbidding land harbours a dying tribe–cursed members of the ancient Inuit, who seize the arrival of Ryan and his band as their last hope to appease angry gods…by offering them up as human sacrifice. In the Deathlands, the price for survival is the constant fear of death.
Both men felt palpable relief when they reached cover
“Which way?” Ryan snapped as they came to a halt.
Jak paused, his impassive face refusing to betray the intensity of his concentration.
“There…there…” he said simply, indicating the direction.
Ryan knew what the albino teen was thinking: it was an obvious move. These people either credited them with no intelligence or had an innate confidence in the conditions, leaving them with little option.
“Let’s do it,” Ryan stated. “I’ll go clockwise, you counterclockwise. See how many there are, and how they’re spread, then meet at the mouth of the passage, fill in the others.”
“What if they not want us meet up?” Jak queried.
Ryan grinned. It was cold, without mirth. “They’ll want that—right now they’re wondering where we are. They’ll be so relieved we’ve turned up and they’ve got us all in one place that they won’t wonder what we’ve been doing until it’s too late…”
Other titles in the Deathlands saga:
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
Skydark Spawn
Damnation Road Show
Devil Riders
Bloodfire
Hellbenders
Separation
Death Hunt
Shaking Earth
Black Harvest
Vengeance Trail
Ritual Chill
DEATH LANDS ®
James Axler
All spirits are enslaved which serve things evil.
—Percy Bysshe Shelley, 1792–1822
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 (#u38ba9314-b5be-575d-8eca-990fc6ab0546)
Chapter Two (#ua8d5171e-c662-54f7-87cc-76a844182faa)
Chapter Three (#u21f73444-45e8-5daa-89b6-72c452c5ae6b)
Chapter Four (#ud0462e1b-61db-5e57-840b-3e400381d203)
Chapter Five (#u245e3274-f11b-5702-9f5f-3dc94d6bde5c)
