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      DUST DWELLERS

      Seeking refuge in a post-Armageddon America, Ryan Cawdor and his crew of misfits travel together for survival and sanity. Known as Deathlands, this lawless hellscape is defined by destruction, death and despair. Only those who persevere with the belief in a better future stand a chance in this world where each day brings a new, and potentially lethal, struggle.

      HARNESSED MINDS

      Desperate to find water and shelter on the barren plains of former Oklahoma, Ryan and his team come upon a community that appears, at first, to be peaceful. Then the ville is attacked by a group of its own inhabitants—people infected with a parasite that has turned them into slave warriors for an unknown overlord. The companions try to help fend off the enemy and protect the remaining population, but when Ryan is captured during a second ambush, all hope seems lost. Especially when he launches an assault against his own crew.

      Three of the six-wheeled

      vehicles skidded to a stop

      Nine longblasters were poked up over the cabs and aimed at Jak, J.B. and the members of the collective.

      “People of the Silvertide collective, you are ordered to surrender immediately, or we will be forced to open fire!” The voice that boomed over the loudspeaker sounded familiar. “You have ten seconds to comply.”

      All through the camp, fighting men and women looked up at the voice. When they saw the overwhelming force arrayed against them, they turned to J.B., who shook his head.

      “Stop! It’s over,” he shouted.

      “Not serious,” Jak muttered.

      “For the moment, yeah, I am,” the Armorer whispered. “But stay ready.”

      “Lay down your weapons, put up your hands and walk toward the sound of my voice.”

      The driver’s door of the main truck opened and a tall man stepped out into the light. When they saw him, both J.B.’s and Jak’s jaws dropped.

      The newest leader of the kidnappers was Ryan Cawdor.

      Hive Invasion

      James Axler

      The brain may be regarded as a kind of parasite of the organism, a pensioner, as it were, who dwells with the body.

      —Arthur Schopenhauer, 1788–1860

       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 pre-dark cryogenic suspension, she brings twentieth-century healing skills to a nightmare.

      Jak Lauren: A true child of the wastelands, reared on ad-versity, 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

       Cover

       Back Cover Text

       Introduction

       Title Page

       Quote

      Legend

      Chapter One

      Chapter Two

      Chapter Three

      Chapter Four

       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

       Epilogue

       Copyright

       Chapter One

      “Gaia, Ryan, just do it!”

      Taking a deep breath, Ryan Cawdor flexed his fingers, then picked up the scalpel. He wished there was some other way to do this, but just like the last time,

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