Devil Riders

The one-eyed man’s heart was pounding in his chest. It was impossible. This could not be happening.

The brothers exchanged a glance. “The Trader? Hell, I dunno,” Sparrow said. “Never saw the guy. He was always inside a big-ass tank, stays behind a blister of the mil glass.”

“How many wags?” J.B. pressed him. “Describe them!”

Sparrow scrunched his face. “Well, there were three, one big wag and two others, each plated with metal and covered with blasters. Big stuff. Baron Gaza was scared to death of the guy. Hell, who wouldn’t be with all his weapons?”

“More,” Ryan said through clenched teeth.

Fumbling for a reply, Jed scratched his head. “Well, I heard Kate call the big truck War Wag One. That help any?”

The universe seemed to go still at those simple words, as if it were breaking apart and rejoining in a new pattern, reorganizing itself on a most basic of levels.

“He made it,” Ryan said quietly. “Trader’s alive!”

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

Skydark Spawn

Damnation Road Show

Devil Riders

DEATH LANDS®

James Axler

For my buddy, Rich Tucholka

The sun and the moon and the stars would have disappeared long ago…had they happened to be within the reach of predatory human hands.

—Havelock Ellis, The Dance of Life (1923)

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

Epilogue

Chapter One

As muted thunder rolled across the grassy field, a group of people burst from the bushes, running for their lives.

Many carried bundles of possessions, but most had already thrown away the packs for greater speed. Death was coming fast, and every second counted. Their convoy had been ambushed at a water hole, and most of the mercies hired to guard them from coldhearts were aced already. Now there was nothing else to do but run.

“The Devils are here!” a burly man shouted, pulling a rusty blaster from within his ragged shirt and thumbing back the hammer. “Head for the trees!”

Some of the fleeing people did as ordered. Others ran mindlessly across the open ground. A few fell weeping to the ground in surrender. Only two others pulled weapons and turned to face the onrushing enemy. The man held a homemade scattergun, the woman a crude crossbow built from car parts. As the man cocked back both of the hammers on the shotgun, the woman pulled a razor-tipped arrow from the quiver on her back and nocked it.

“Aim for the front,” the first man commanded, licking dry lips. “With luck the rest will be close behind and they’ll crash into the one we ace.”

“We ain’t gonna ace nobody,” the woman growled. “Nothing can stop the Devils.”

Constantly wiping his sweaty hands on his trousers, the man with the shotgun said nothing and tried to control his breathing.

High above the screaming people, sheet lightning crashed among the purple and orange clouds, while black velocity streamers sliced through the sky like the slashes of a knife. Suddenly from out of nowhere, an arc of fire streaked across the polluted atmosphere as another predark satellite descended too low and was caught by the gravity to be disintegrated in a fiery reentry.

On the ground, a wave of black-and-silver motorcycles bounded into view from over a groundswell, the riders carrying nets and clubs to take their prey alive. Each rider had a human skull, painted red, attached to the yoke of the handlebars. Some had a tuft of hair still in place, but most were missing teeth, or entire jaws, the grisly remains of their victims saved as trophies to adorn their machines. The Blue Devils, coldhearts of the Panhandle.

“Ace ’em!” the leader of the convoy shouted, then fired his blaster twice at the oncoming motorcycles.

A spray of sparks leaped from the handlebars of the lead Harley as a slug ricocheted off the chromed steel. The bikers paid no attention to the incoming lead and spread out after the sprinting people.

Tracking her target, the woman released the arrow, which hit a bald biker in the leg. The man cursed as his machine swerved, then the rest of the gang were among the defenders, the heavy nets filling the air.

A spread of net caught a woman, dragging her to the ground, and as she tried to rise another rider slammed her with his club, knocking her unconscious. Rising from the thick grass, an older man shoved a wooden spear into the spokes of a passing Harley, but missed completely. However, the attack was noticed and the lead coldheart sharply changed direction and revved the bike’s big engine. The front of the vehicle raised off the ground to then slam down on the attacker, crushing his chest with the horrible sound of splintering bones.

More nets flew through the air and people fell tangled in the ropes, tiny hooks woven into the mesh catching skin and clothing alike. The leader of the convoy fired his blaster at a nearby biker, but there was only a spray of sparks from a misfire. Jouncing over the irregular field, a fat biker covered with tattoos swung the barrel of a scattergun toward the leader’s skull. But the man ducked just in time and pulled the trigger again, this time a roar sounding from the blaster. Blood sprayed from the biker’s arm, and he swung the scattergun about to pull both triggers. The double explosion caught the leader full in the face, blowing off his head in a frothy eruption of bone, brains and blood.

More lightning flashed across the sky as the big engines roared, the bikers circling their prey, driving them closer together while they pulled more nets from bulging saddle bags. The woman let fly an arrow from her crossbow again, hitting nothing, and then was hit from behind by a net. She dropped squirming to the ground, then pulled a knife and buried it into her chest, bright blood gushing from the mortal wound.

Dropping the empty scattergun, the older man raised his hands in surrender. A Devil biker slammed into him from behind, spinning the whitehair, who crashed to the ground in a tangle of limbs. Soon, the roar of the engines mixed with the cries of the trapped people. Another blaster discharged, and a biker smashed a young man across the back with a thrown club, sending him sprawling to the ground.

With the blasters empty, the battle was over in minutes and the captives were freed from the nets. Hands tied behind their backs, the prisoners were kicked and shoved into a line before their grinning captors.

This close, the old man could see that the biker gang was dressed in rags draped over their thick leather jackets to hide their wealth, but were armed to the teeth with more blasters than any two villes worth of sec men. The machines they rode were old and patched, draped with saddlebags bulging with supplies and a few precious cans of slick, grain alcohol cut with traces of gasoline to fuel the big Harley engines. Every member of the pack was armed with some kind of a blaster, mostly scatterguns, yet only three of the bikes had an intact headlight, and only one had a windshield. The machines were battered, but still powerful, able to go places that no heavily armored war wag could ever reach.

“What’s the total?” Cranston asked, the lead biker leaning over the handlebars of his purring machine.

The man was a craggy giant with closely cropped blond hair. His nose was flat and wide, but whether that was a natural mutation or a very old injury was impossible to discern. The handle of a knife jutted from each boot, a big bore handcannon rode on his right hip and a longblaster wrapped in dirty rags was strapped across his back. The stock was deeply carved, and feathers dangled from below the muzzle of the weapon. The old man knew what that was for. To test the direction of the wind when he was placing a long shot.

“Ten people, four corpses,” Krury announced, running a hand across his bald head. “A pretty fair haul.”

“Not bad.” Cranston grinned, killing the engine on the bike, then using the edge of his boot to force down the stand. Stepping off the Harley, he walked over to the line of prisoners. Ignoring the men, he checked the women, separating the very old and the one pregnant girl from the rest.

“You boys can fuck these,” he said. “But no broken bones. We want them fresh for the market. Start a fire going and jerk the corpses to smoke the meat.

“Cannies!” the old man gasped. “You’re not slavers, but nuking cannies!”

In a blur of speed, Cranston slapped the man across the face, driving him to the ground. The prisoner looked up with open hatred in his face, blood trickling from a split lip.

“Don’t back talk me, wrinklie!” the biker snarled. “We don’t eat people, but we know folks who do, and they pay us in plenty of slick for our wheels in exchange for the long-pig meat. So it’s the mines or the stew pot, take your choice.”

Slowly, the prisoner stood in a surprising display of strength for a man with so much gray hair. “How about a third choice?” he said, hawking to spit the blood from his mouth. “Bet that I can chill any one of you cannie coldhearts with my bare hands.”

At that, the bikers roared with laughter.

“Black dust, but the wrinklie’s got balls!” Cranston smiled, then his eyes went as hard as broken glass. “Well, we got enough to spare one for some entertainment. Okay, slave, if you win, you take the place of the stud ya chill. Never have enough men with real guts.”

“And if I lose?” the old man asked, standing straighter.

The rest of the prisoners stayed motionless and silent. Their doom was sealed; this madness had nothing to do with them.

Hooking both thumbs into his leather gun belt, Krury sneered. “Then we deliver ya to the cannies alive,” he said in an edged voice. “They got a ceremony called the Blood Dance. Starts with taking off your skin and feeding it back to ya. Something about sweetening their food.”

“Then they get creative,” another biker added, rubbing his crotch. “And guess what ya eat next?”

The old man swallowed with difficulty, but said nothing.

“Still game, old man?” Cranston demanded, resting a hand on his blaster.

A stiff breeze from the stormy clouds overhead ruffled the prisoner’s gray hair as he nervously flexed both hands.

“The name’s Denver Joe,” he said softly. “Denver Joe Sinclair, although I’m really from Indy.” For some reason this seemed to be important to the old man, a source of pride.

“Be smart, old-timer!” Another biker laughed. The man had long dirty red hair tied off in a ponytail that reached his waist. “Choose the mines and live. Anything’s better than being a toy for the cannies.”

One of the women prisoners burst into tears at that, and the others merely trembled. A man on the end of the line looked as if he were about to be sick.

“Yeah, I should work in the mines,” Denver Joe shot back. “But then a gutless feeb like you would suck scabbies in a gaudy house to stay alive. I’ll go down fighting, ya mutie lover!”

Vastly amused by the unexpected display of rebellion, the bikers laughed even louder this time. With a snarl, the redheaded rider started forward, drawing a hatchet from his belt, but Cranston stopped the man with a stiff arm across the chest. The two stood there for a moment, like a breed master holding back his prize bloodhound.

“Whatcha think, Larry?” Cranston said, glancing at the skinny old man and then the muscular biker. “You missed twice with your net and killed a slut we could have ridden tonight. I think you owe the pack some entertainment.”

“Anytime,” the biker snarled.

“Winner take all?” Denver Joe added as insultingly as possible. “My life against your place in the gang?”

“Done!” Larry growled, starting to strip off his leather jacket and spare weapons. Kneeling as if in prayer, the old man took some dirt and rubbed it into his palms.

Cranston narrowed his eyes at that. Dirt in the palms was a fighter’s trick from the arena of a baron. A person did that so the sweat wouldn’t make him drop his knife. But the wrinklie didn’t have a blade. Was this some sort of trick, or worse, a trap? It almost seemed as if the whitehair was trying to goad the biker into a fight right then and there. But that made no sense. Larry was twice the old man’s size, and there wasn’t a chance in hell the outlander could win. Gut instincts learned in a hundred battles told the chief biker there was something very wrong here, but he couldn’t figure out where the danger was. No sense taking chances, though.

“Not here,” Cranston announced loudly. “We’ll drive to the mesa near Death River, and you two can fight after we eat tonight.”

“Gonna chill him now!” Larry snarled, his face contorted with hatred, and he charged at the helpless old man.

With surprising agility, Denver Joe dodged out of the way of the lumbering biker, then held his bound wrists toward Krury. Face-to-face, the two men stood for a long moment, then the biker pulled a blade and slashed the ropes around the old man’s hands. Now free, Denver Joe brutally kicked the biker in the balls and grabbed the knife from his limp hands just in time to block another slash from Larry. The two men circled each other, looking for an opening to end the fight fast. The oily knives gleaming evilly in the setting sunlight, the fighters darted in slashing, then moved apart again, while the watching bikers cheered and laughed. Mute as forgotten stones, the helpless slaves said nothing under the watchful blasters of the remaining coldhearts.

Diving forward, Denver Joe stabbed at the biker’s face, driving him backward. But Larry shifted to the side and speared his knife into the older man’s thigh. Blood welled from the wound, and Denver Joe cursed loudly as he grabbed the wound, trying to staunch the blood flow. One inch more inward, and the blade would have cut the big artery in his leg. He had to move faster and end this quick.

The bikers cheered as Larry danced in closer and stabbed Denver Joe again in the leg, and then the side, the smaller blade of the oldster only cutting air as he tried again and again for a death blow to the throat.

But the blood loss was starting to slow his hand, his breathing becoming more labored. Backing away from the younger fighter, Denver Joe headed for some weeds and was soon splashing in ankle-deep water. Then he dramatically slipped and fell into the shallow creek. Grinning in triumph, Larry charged in for the kill and Denver Joe threw a fistful of mud at the biker’s face. Larry easily sidestepped the gob and went straight into a tangle of weeds. Tricked! As he tripped, the biker threw himself forward to avoid going down, and Denver Joe rose to rake his knife deep along the exposed neck of the fumbling man. Now the cheers and laughter of the biker gang stopped completely.

Blood spurted from the severed artery, and the hapless biker dropped his knife to grab the ghastly wound in both hands. But tiny squirts of red continued to pump from between his dirty fingers. Denver Joe shifted about in the muddy water, seeking another opening as his adversary mouthed curses and removed a hand from his gore-streaked throat to pull a small blaster hidden inside his shirt.

“Here’s something for ya, wrinklie!” he stormed, thumbing back the hammer.

Moving fast, Denver Joe threw the stolen knife as hard as he could and it slammed deep into the biker’s wrist, pinning his hand to his chest. Fingers convulsing, Larry accidentally triggered the blaster and the rear of his shirt ballooned as the .22 slug blew out his side.

Cranston inhaled sharply at that, and started to draw his own weapon, then paused. Larry could still win this. It was only a flash wound, nothing more, and Denver Joe was defenseless. Just pull out the knife and shoot him dead. Do it, boy!

Blood was swirling in the muddy water, as a pale Larry pulled the hand free and fired twice at the older man, missing each time. Diving into the mud, Denver Joe rolled closer to the biker and incredibly came up with the earlier dropped knife to ram it to the hilt in Larry’s crotch. A geyser of blood pumped from the hideous wound, and the biker screeched as his adversary slowly stood, using the strength of his legs and arms to force the blade upward through balls and stomach. As Larry started to convulse, Denver Joe grabbed a fistful of hair to yank back the dying man’s head and then cut the exposed throat open from ear to ear.

Gurgling horribly, Larry fell face forward into the filth of the creek to weakly shudder before going completely still, only a few small bubbles of escaping air rising from his buried face.

Breathing hard, Denver Joe waded to the shore of the water hole and tossed the crimson-splattered blade on the ground before the stunned bikers. Dead silence reigned for an impossibly long time before somebody spoke.

“Black dust, ya did it,” a burly biker snarled in amusement. “Cut Larry open like a hog.”

Rubbing an old scar, Krury added, “Never seen that done to a man before.”

“He was a punk,” Denver Joe wheezed, his clothing trickling red from the minor wounds. He was still at the mercy of the coldhearts, and lived or died at their whim. Killing Larry hadn’t been enough. He had needed to do the chilling with style and win their respect, too. But if he’d gone too far and earned their fear, he would be gunned down before taking another step. When you were captured by the Blue Devils, you joined by blood trial, or were taken as cargo.

“Well?” Denver Joe asked impatiently. “Somebody going to give a man a hand out of the fucking mud?”

“Do it yourself,” Cranston ordered brusquely, releasing his grip on the handcannon at his belt. “The Devils don’t ask for help from nobody. Remember that.”

So he would live. Forcing his trembling legs to work, Denver Joe clambered through the weeds and back onto solid ground.

“Which one is mine now?” he said, trying not to weave while standing. He felt ill, but any sign of weakness could send him back to the chains.

Spreading his cracked lips in a grin, a bald man covered with crude tattoos jerked a thumb at the empty motorcycle parked amid the dozen bikes. “The bike with the knucklehead engine is yours now,” he said. “Own her fair and square.”

Stiffly walking to the bike, Denver Joe checked the saddlebags and found some clothing that wasn’t too dirty to bandage the small wounds. He was pleased to see some supplies tucked away in the bag, including a plastic jar of honey. Smearing the cuts with honey, he then tied them off with the cloth, grunting as the crude bandages cinched tight.

“What the fuck you doing?” Ballard demanded, puzzled.

“Honey is a natural—” Denver bit back the pre-dark word. “The wounds won’t fester and rot.”

“By using honey?” The biker chortled. “Nuke me, never heard that shit before. Sure it works?”

“Like a bullet in a blaster,” the oldster said confidently.

“How do ya know that?” Krury demanded.

Larry’s gun belt was draped over the handlebars, with a big bore blaster tucked into the oiled leather. Near the skull a badly nicked hatchet was jammed into a spring-clamp on the handlebars for fast action, and a double-barrel shotgun jutted from a leather boot alongside the flat-top engine. Drawing the scattergun, Denver Joe checked the load inside and closed the breech with a solid satisfying snap. “I used to know a healer,” he said, pulling the blaster to check its ammo. Then he tossed the blaster to Krury who made the catch.

“For the loan of the knife,” Denver Joe said gruffly.

Snorting a laugh, Krury slipped the blaster into his belt. “Worth it,” he said.

“So what we do about that?” a woman biker asked, indicating the muddy corpse with a motion of her chin. Angelina was fat with a roll of belly resting on her wide belt. Her leather vest laced together showing a wealth of acne-scarred cleavage. She was the chief bitch of the gang, but also the best butcher they had. Meat spoiled fast in the summer, and unless the bodies were cleaned and smoked properly, there was nothing to deliver to the cannies in exchange for the slick.