LITMIR.BIZ

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      Contents

      Acknowledgments

      Prologue

      Chapter 1

      Chapter 2

      Chapter 3

      Chapter 4

      Chapter 5

      Chapter 6

      Chapter 7

      Chapter 8

      Chapter 9

      Chapter 10

      Chapter 11

      Chapter 12

      Chapter 13

      Chapter 14

      Chapter 15

      Chapter 16

      Chapter 17

      Chapter 18

      Chapter 19

      Chapter 20

      Chapter 21

      Chapter 22

      Chapter 23

      Chapter 24

      Chapter 25

      Chapter 26

      Chapter 27

      Chapter 28

      Chapter 29

      Chapter 30

      Chapter 31

      Chapter 32

      Special thanks to Mark Ellis for his contribution to the Outlanders concept, developed for Gold Eagle.

      Prologue

      The former barony of Beausoleil, the Tennessee River Valley

      Sean Reichert moved in quickly, knocking the cudgel aside and striking the slagjacker hard in the belly with his right fist.

      Air exploded from the small man’s lungs with a sound like a protracted, phlegm-saturated cough. The wooden club clattered to the floor and the man clutched at his midriff, doubling over. Reichert drove a knee into the slagjacker’s face, enjoying the sensation of the man’s nose collapsing under the impact.

      Blood spewing from both nostrils like an opened faucet, the man collapsed to the floor of the tavern and lay there, twitching. Reichert swept the people watching from the tables with a bright-eyed stare and boyish grin. “Want to see me his kick his head loose of his shoulders?”

      The patrons of the Tosspot Tumor didn’t answer. The few who hadn’t averted their gaze glared at the young man with angry, resentful eyes. Larry Robison, sharing a corner table with a nude woman with hair the color and texture of a hayrick, called out, “Yeah, we so fuckin’ want to see it.”

      He chucked the blonde beneath her chin with a finger. “Don’t you, baby?”

      The woman blinked her glassy, unfocused eyes and reached for the bottle on the table. “Uh-huh.”

      “That’s what I thought,” Reichert said. “So, here goes—”

      Grin widening, he drew back his combat-booted right foot, then kicked it forward. The thickly treaded sole skimmed over the prone man’s face as Joe Weaver caught Reichert by the collar and pulled him off balance.

      “That’s enough, you bloodthirsty moron,” Weaver snapped, dragging the younger man across the room. He slammed him hard against the slab of rough-hewed pine that served as the bar.

      Reichert struggled, but Weaver applied a wrist lock to the youth’s right arm and kept him in place. Reichert strained to get free for only a few seconds. “I showed the son of a bitch,” he shouted jubilantly. “I put him in his place, by God. Nobody disses us—Team Phoenix for America, fuck yeah!”

      Despite his Germanic surname, Sean Reichert was Latino, with straight black hair, a dark complexion and a carefully maintained mustache. Although only of medium height, his athletic body carried tightly packed muscle.

      Joe Weaver was considerably taller, heavier and older, his square-chinned face framed by a bronze- hued beard. A pair of round-lensed spectacles covered his slightly slanted eyes. Wearily, he said, “The poor bastard didn’t dis you. I think he’s hard of hearing.”

      Reichert paused, glanced at Weaver, then at the unconscious man whose blood filled the cracks between the floorboards. “Well, he’s fuckin’ hard of breathing now, too.”

      He laughed uproariously at his own joke and with a disgusted head shake, Joe Weaver released him. Larry Robison joined in with the younger man’s laughter. Tall, with a deep chest and wide shoulders, Robison had a big head covered by a mop of dark brown hair. Like Weaver, he affected a beard, but trimmed closer to the jawline. The nude woman caressed his beard with trembling fingers, then she slid sideways, draping herself over his lap.

      The Tosspot Tumor tavern was fairly typical of most such establishments in the Tartarus Pits of any barony—one big common room redolent with the reek of home-brewed liquor and unwashed bodies. A makeshift bar coursed along the rear wall, a row of wooden barrels with rough planks nailed atop them to serve as a buffet. A scattering of tables and chairs completed the furnishings.

      The tavern did double duty as a brothel, so a single doorway behind the bar led to a small, dark bedroom. From the room came a hoarse cough and then a gravelly male voice snarled, “For fuck’s sake, can’t a man get a decent night’s sleep anywhere in this shithole world?”

      Reichert and Weaver glanced toward the shadows shifting beyond the open door, hearing the squeak of bedsprings and the thump of booted feet on the floor. “Sorry, boss,” Reichert called. “We didn’t know you were supposed to be sleeping.”

      “Besides,” Robison said, “it’s near the middle of the afternoon.”

      A teenage girl stepped through the door, brushing a strand of brown hair away from her eyes. She clutched a frayed sheet around her thin frame, leaving one knobby shoulder bare. Robison was reminded of a sorority girl returning from a particularly boisterous toga party, but he doubted she was old enough to attend even the most liberal-arts college. He never was quite sure what a liberal-arts college was supposed to be, but he presumed it was a place that liberals sent their kids to learn how to be artists, so he hated them as a matter of course.

      Mike Hays lumbered out of the room, absently smoothing his shaggy silver mustache with a scarred thumb. His burly body was clad only in olive-green boxer shorts with the words Hays, Maj. stenciled onto the elastic waistband. A pair of unlaced combat boots flipped and flopped on his feet. From his right hand dangled his Belgian Fabrique Nationale Mag-58 subgun. He didn’t even visit the outhouse, much less sleep, without it.

      “Fighting with the locals again?” the gray-haired commander of Team Phoenix demanded.

      Reichert leaned against the bar, propping his elbows up on the edge. “What the fuck else is there to do here, Major? This is the only ville we’ve found that ain’t controlled by Magistrates, so there’s nobody to fight but the locals.”

      Hays hawked up from deep in his throat and spit on the litter-strewed floor. Pushing between Reichert and Weaver, he asked, “What’ve you been taught about winning hearts and minds, Sergeant?”

      Robison brayed out a short, scornful laugh. His female companion laughed, too, but very querulously. “Whoever came up with that shit never tried to make a life for themselves in fuckin’ twenty-third-century Tennessee…in

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