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Axler, James - Deathlands 22 - Rider, Reaper
Even while his eyes closed, the battle was nowhere near finished for him.
The Trader had always prided himself on being a man who never ever dreamed, or
never had any dream that caused him a moment's concern.
"Dreams are weakness," he used to say, when he ran the two large war wags into
every corner of Deathlands, when even the most powerful baron would hes-itate
to alienate the Trader.
Everyone knew that if you crossed any of Trader's men or women, then you were
crossing the grizzled leader as well. And he'd come looking for you, with his
famous battered Armalite in his arms, like the avenging Angel of Death
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Incarnate.
He used to boast that he had no enemies. At least, he had no enemies still
living.
At his side, deeply asleep, Abe twitched and rolled onto his back, hands
cupped protectively around his groin.
Trader was sliding helplessly into the same dream that had been plaguing him
for several weeks now. More or less since his ex-gunner had tracked him down
in the far Northwest, bringing back memories of one-eyed Cawdor and the pale
and laconic Dix, memories that he'd really believed were buried forever.
The memories had formed the backdrop for the re-petitive dream that was now
composing itself from the broken shards of the tranquil mirror of sleep a
prim-itive landscape, barren and wild. Volcanic rocks had been twisted and
sheared into myriad bizarre, glass-edged shapes. Walking was extremely
difficult.
Driv-ing was impossible.
The two wags had been left behind. Trader couldn't quite recall where they
were.
In the darkness of their campsite, Trader's lips moved, the words hardly
disturbing the night air. "Deathlands is my land," he said.
He was wearing steel-toed combat boots, but the ra-zored rocks had cut them
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Axler, James - Deathlands 22 - Rider, Reaper apart. His feet were hot, sore,
blistered. The sky was a dome of beaten copper, with the sun like molten gold,
hanging at its center.
Trader knew that Ryan and J.B. were with him, fol-lowing close behind, letting
him break the trail for them. They rode on his back, sucking at his power,
trying to drain him of his life force, so that they could usurp his authority
and leave him to die in the shim-mering oven.
He paused and stared around. There was a glisten-ing expanse of cracked salt
flats a quarter mile ahead of him. The heat distorted everything, but Trader
thought that he could make out some mountains, their jagged peaks tipped with
snow. How far away? Ten miles? Hundred miles?
Ryan and J.B. were behind him.
Trader turned.
Salt flats. And snow-topped mountains, an eternity away from him.
No sign of Ryan and J.B.
Trader completed the circle.
It was the same every which way he looked.
"Why don't you boys come alongside?" he said. But his throat was dry, his
blackened tongue swollen like an old piece of sunbaked harness. He tried to
swallow, but his spittle had become fine red dust.
Trader reached a hesitant hand toward his face, feeling the tug of the
Armalite strung over his shoul-der. There was stubble across his chin, and the
puck-ered heads of old blisters. The corners of his mouth were cracked and so
tender that he jumped in his sleep and nearly awoke at the fiery agony.
There was a temptation to lie down and rest, but the honed boulders would have
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Axler, James - Deathlands 22 - Rider, Reaper slashed his desiccated flesh back
to the bare bones.
At his feet was a small pool of cloudy water, less than a yard across. In its
shallows there were shadowy fish moving, tails waving sluggishly. Trader knelt
and dipped a hand into the warm liquid, brought his fin-gers to his mouth and
licked them. He spit it out, his mouth puckered at the dreadful alkaline
bitterness.
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It was bitterly undrinkable.
Thirst was overpowering. Trader would have done anything for a mouthful of
crystal water. If it had meant pressing his mother's face down into white-hot
charcoal, then he'd have done it without a moment's hesitation.
Without a pang of conscience.
That was one of the great hidden truths about the mysterious and solitary man
called the Trader. He didn't have anything approaching a normal con-science.
Guilt never plagued him. If he had to do something, then he did it. Slit a
baby's throat. Gun down a helpless old man. Burn a ville to ashes. Any-thing.
Betray a friend?
"No."
Chill a friend?
"Yeah."
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