Blood Red Tide. James Axler
RUINS OF WAR
In a nuclear wasteland where death and destruction are the norm, Ryan Cawdor and his fellow survivors seek out refuge while looking to one another for protection. Civilization no longer exists in the barren Deathlands. There is only the will to survive and the dim hope of a promised land.
CREW OF THE DAMNED
Taken captive on a ship in the former Caribbean, Ryan and his companions must work as part of the crew or perish at the hands of the captain. But the mutant in charge of the vessel is the least of their worries. Each day is a struggle as they face rivalry among the sailors, violent attacks and deadly storms. Worse, a powerful enemy is hunting the ship to destroy everyone on board. Fighting for their lives and those of their shipmates, the companions must find unity within the chaos or die in the attempt.
The Glory slowed as the War Pig surged forward
Ryan grimaced and waited for the smoke to clear. He caught sight of his target as smoke shredded around her forward progress.
The Deathlands survivor fired, and his bullet tore a hole in the deck a foot from his target. He worked his bolt, then fired again. The bullet sparked off the iron of the War Pig’s starboard chaser.
Ryan could see one of the officers shouting as he realized the enemy was shooting for the powder kegs. The officer grabbed the cask of gunpowder by the port chaser, pressed it over his head and with effort charged the taffrail and threw the powder into the sea.
Ryan swung his scope to starboard. A huge man in red and black seized the starboard chaser powder cask and raised it over his head with ease. Ryan pulled the Longbow’s trigger. The .338 Lapua Magnum bullet hit the cask of black powder at over 3,000 feet per second.
The bow of the War Pig disappeared in a thunderous black-and-orange pulse.
Blood Red Tide
James Axler
O Captain! My Captain! Our fearful trip is done, the ship has weathered every rock, the prize we sought is won, the port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting.
—Walt Whitman
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.…
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