Deathlands 118: Blood Red Tide
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.
Other titles in the Deathlands saga:
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
Atlantis Reprise
Labyrinth
Strontium Swamp
Shatter Zone
Perdition Valley
Cannibal Moon
Sky Raider
Remember Tomorrow
Sunspot
Desert Kings
Apocalypse Unborn
Thunder Road
Plague Lords (Empire of Xibalba Book I)
Dark Resurrection (Empire of Xibalba Book II)
Eden’s Twilight
Desolation Crossing
Alpha Wave
Time Castaways
Prophecy
Blood Harvest
Arcadian’s Asylum
Baptism of Rage
Doom Helix
Moonfeast
Downrigger Drift
Playfair’s Axiom
Tainted Cascade
Perception Fault
Prodigal’s Return
Lost Gates
Haven’s Blight
Hell Road Warriors
Palaces of Light
Wretched Earth
Crimson Waters
No Man’s Land
Nemesis
Chrono Spasm
Sins of Honor
Storm Breakers
Dark Fathoms
Siren Song
End Program
Desolation Angels
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
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
“I smell the sea,” Doc Tanner reported.
Ryan Cawdor, leader of a group of seven companions who traveled the Deathlands, still mostly smelled and tasted his own bile from the jump. He stepped out from the shadows of the yawning redoubt blast doors. Someone back in the day had constructed a warehouse-sized building around the entrance to the redoubt. It was a blockhouse, and Ryan suspected it probably served as camouflage too. At some point the ruse had failed. Holes in the walls that a man could step through and twisted iron rebar indicated the structure had taken artillery fire.
The wind moaned through the holes and emptiness. Ryan sniffed the air. Doc was right. They were close to the sea. The air also smelled like rain was coming. Depending on what hemisphere their jump had taken them, a golden sunrise or sunset spilled through the blasted out front door. Ryan looked at the thick layer of undisturbed dust and bird shit coating the floor.
No one had been here in a very long time.
Ryan took point and his companions spread out behind him.
“It smells tropical,” Doc opined.
A corner of Ryan’s mouth turned up slightly. Doc was definitely damaged goods, but there was nothing wrong with the man’s nose. Ryan jerked his head toward the blackened holes on both sides of the building “Jak, Ricky, check our flanks.”
Jak Lauren and Ricky Morales, the two youngest members of the group, moved out. Ricky raised his silenced DeLisle carbine and peered out one of the smaller blast holes in the wall. “Nothing but rocks, Ryan. Nothing’s moving!”
Jak held his Cold Python and peered to one side. “Jungle. Quiet.”
“Hold positions. J.B., you and me, cross fire on the entrance.” The two men took oblique angles on the shattered blockhouse entrance. J.B. Dix, also known as the Armorer, squatted behind a pile of rubble. Ryan stood behind solid wall. He shouldered his Steyr Scout rifle and risked a glance outside.
Ryan stared.
J.B. cradled his scattergun and peered at Ryan quizzically. “What?”
Ryan gazed on something he had seen only a few times in his life.
Krysty Wroth, Ryan’s lover, held her blaster in both hands and tilted her chin at him. “What is it?”
“Yo, Ryan!” Mildred Wyeth called. “You’re starting to freak me out! What do you see?”
The one-eyed man waved his friends forward. The redoubt and the blockhouse concealing it were on a steep hillside. A raddled predark road zigzagged down through the forest to a lagoon painted in pink and gold with the setting sun. All eyes stared at the lagoon and what lay anchored there.
“A full rigged ship!” Doc declared. “How delightful.”
“What does that mean, Doc?” Ryan asked.
“In my time a full-rigged ship meant a ship with three masts, all square rigged.”
Ryan snapped out his Navy longeyes.
He gazed on the vessel, knowing that such a ship was a rare thing. The few villes that could build boats of their own from scratch produced ketches or small fishing boats.
Ricky had been born in a port ville in old Puerto Rico, and he gasped at the sight of something so magnificent. “She’s beautiful!”
Ryan agreed. The ship below was perfect. Her lines were utterly clean. She was a design from some far better time, built to sail the world’s oceans using the power of the wind alone. Ryan took in her masts and yards.
“Have you ever seen a ship as nice as that, Doc?”
“In my time, dear friend, and I had never expected to see the like again. Indeed I had the pleasure of touring my country’s good sailing ship
USS Constitution
in my youth, upon an idyll in New York City. She was a frigate, and an antique even then.”
“Jesus.” Mildred shook her head. “I took a tour of the
USS Constitution
when I was in college, and that was in my time.”
“Big boat,” Jak commented.
Doc sighed happily. “This vessel is rather smaller than the
Constitution
. If pressed, I would name her a sloop-of-war.”
“Why?” Ryan asked.
“Well,” Doc replied, “she is a wooden ship, Ryan. Given skilled carpenters and blacksmiths, every single piece of her can be replaced. Indeed, except perhaps the keel, I would dare to wager that not one plank or spar upon that boat is original. Like an organism slowly replacing its cells as they wear out, the structure never changes, but new wood, new iron, new crews and new life have invigorated her throughout the centuries and—”
Mildred interrupted him, pointing a finger at the mast. It flew a blue flag with a white skeleton hand embroidered on it. “Yeah, and they’re flying the goddamn Jolly Roger!”
“Hmmm.” Doc frowned. “Traditionally the pirate Jolly Roger was black, symbolizing death, or occasionally red for blood. A sea blue ensign should represent the sea and would denote a more commercial enterprise.”
Mildred rolled her eyes. “Um, and the skeleton hand?”
“What that denotes I cannot fathom,” Doc admitted.
“It’s been in a fight,” J.B. stated.
Ryan nodded. The Armorer was right. The ship’s sides were torn and scored. The sails were currently reefed, but Ryan could see blackening and damage. Men worked in the riggings and hung from the ropes along the sides, effecting repairs on holes that were clearly cannon shot. They moved with clear purpose. Ryan stepped out of the blockhouse. His friends followed him, blasters trained on their flanks. He crossed a weed-choked wag parking circle and took point at a shattered guard gate that had once stood sentinel on the road. He waved his companions forward. Ryan pointed his longeyes down the hill. Men on the beach were tending cook fires. Others loaded barrels onto a pair of small boats, and Ryan suspected they were barrels of fresh water. He eagerly scanned the sailing ship again from stem to stern.
“I’m getting a real strong idea we’re probably on an island,” Ryan surmised. “And we’re probably going to need a way off. Maybe we’ll need a parley.”
“No need for a parley!” an opera-quality voice said, then laughed. “Your ship awaits!”