Axler, James - Outlander 21 - Devil in the Moon - The Dragon Kings, Book 1

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James Axler - Outlanders - Devil in the Moon

DEVIL IN THE MOON

James Axler

If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as

"unsold and destroyed" to the publisher, and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this "stripped book."

First edition May 2002 ISBN 0-373-63834-5

DEVIL IN THE MOON

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

mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or

retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher, Worldwide Library, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario,

Canada M3B 3K9.

All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same

name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention. ®

and TM are trademarks of the publisher. Trademarks indicated with ® are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the

Canadian Trade Marks Office and in other countries.

Printed in U.S.A.

The Road to Outlands— From Secret Government Files to the Future

Almost two hundred years after the global holocaust, Kane, a former Magistrate of Cobaltville, often

thought the world had been lucky to survive at all after a nuclear device detonated in the Russian

embassy in Washington, D.C. The aftermath— forever known as skydark—reshaped continents and

turned civilization into ashes.

Nearly depopulated, America became the Deathlands— poisoned by radiation, home to chaos and

mutated life forms. Feudal rule reappeared in the form of baronies, while remote outposts clung to a

brutish existence.

What eventually helped shape this wasteland were the redoubts, the secret preholocaust military

installations with stores of weapons, and the home of gateways, the locational matter-transfer facilities.

Some of the redoubts hid clues that had once fed wild theories of government cover-ups and alien

visitations.

Rearmed from redoubt stockpiles, the barons consoli-dated their power and reclaimed technology for the

villes. Their power, supported by some invisible authority, extended beyond their fortified, walls to what

was now called the Outlands. It was here that the rootstock of humanity survived, living with hellzones

and chemical storms, hounded by Magistrates.

In the villes, rigid laws were enforced—to atone for the sins of the past and prepare the way for a better

future. That was the barons' public credo and their right-to-rule.

Kane, along with friend and fellow Magistrate Grant, had upheld that claim until a fateful Outlands

expedition. A displaced piece of technology…a question to a keeper of the archives…a vague clue about

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alien masters—and their world shifted radically. Suddenly, Brigid Baptiste, the archivist, faced summary

execution, and Grant a quick termination. For Kane there was forgiveness if he pledged his

unquestioning allegiance to Baron Cobalt and his unknown masters and abandoned his friends.

But that allegiance would make him support a mysterious and alien power and deny loyalty and friends.

Then what else was there?

Kane had been brought up solely to serve the ville. Brigid's only link with her family was her mother's

red-gold hair, green eyes and supple form. Grant's clues to his lineage were his ebony skin and powerful

physique. But Oomi, she of the white hair, was an Outlander pressed into sexual servitude in Cobaltyille.

She at least knew her roots and was a reminder to the exiles that the outcasts belonged in the human

family.

Parents, friends, community—the very rootedness of humanity was denied. With no continuity, there

was no forward momentum to the future. And that was the crux— when Kane began to wonder if there

was a future.

For Kane, it wouldn't do. So the only way was out— way, way out.

After their escape, they found shelter at the forgotten Cerberus redoubt headed by Lakesh, a scientist,

Cobaltville's head archivist, and secret opponent of the barons.

With their past turned into a lie, their future threat-ened, only one thing was left to give meaning to the

outcasts. The hunger for freedom, the will to resist the hostile influ-ences. And perhaps, by opposing,

end them.

Chapter 1

The Day of the Basilisk dawned with wind, a brief flurry of sleet and the stink of blood. Foxcroft Sana-

torium was a place of great beauty, with its high whitewashed walls and meticulously manicured lawns.

But the cloud-covered sun shed a ghostly, col-orless illumination that painted the grounds in stark

contrasts of shadow and light.

The assembly was the greatest of the year since it was the last of the three feast days, the Period of

Behavioral Mastery. All who lived within proximity of the sanatorium flocked to wait in murmuring ex-

citement for the basilisks to choose which among the Prey Party would face them in the operating arena.

Mina, her limbs aching and leaden with exhaustion, looked down the slope into the Valley of the

Divinely Inspired. People milled around the walls of the san-atorium and jostled one another for seats in

the bowl-shaped amphitheater. The opening ceremonies had al-ready been completed. Chief of Staff

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Eljay and his assistant, Dr. Sardonicus, were already allowing the preliminary sacrifices into the arena,

offering up their blood and flesh to the basilisks.

Crouched in a clump of underbrush sprouting be-tween two moss-covered outcroppings, Mina could see

quite clearly how the stadium was filled by people whose excited shrieks filled the air.

On one side of the amphitheater, ragged people milled uncertainly through a narrow doorway. Men and

women, cripples and the elderly were forced out into the open. One hobbled about with the aid of a

crutch. All of them were streaked with blood that trickled from superficial cuts on their arms and legs.

The preliminary sacrifices were the Chronics, the ha-bituated respondents, diagnosed by Eljay and

Sardon-icus as being untreatable.

Trumpets blared discordantly. Mina knew the noise signified nothing, but was meant only to agitate the

caged basilisks. When a gate on the opposite wall slid aside, the Chronics cried out and tried to escape

back through the door, but they were driven back by the lashing whips in the hands of white-coated

attendants. The other gate opened completely, and black-winged shapes lunged through it.

Stimulated by the blaring horns and driven to shrieking madness by the scent of blood, the basilisks

swarmed toward the humans. A few of the people tried to hold their ground, while others turned and

fled. The basilisks pursued them, alighting on the el-derly and the crippled first, slashing at their faces

with razor-keen teeth and talons. Instinctively, the crea-tures sought to put out their eyes, knowing

blinded prey was the easiest.

The man with the crutch flailed furiously, using it as a bludgeon. He managed to hold the basilisks at

bay for a few moments until one landed on his head. Dropping the crutch, he tried to protect his eyes. An

instant later he went down under a pack of the shriek-ing creatures.

The audience in the arena shrieked like basilisks themselves.

Mina's stomach lurched with nausea as she watched the black-winged creatures flitting over the

eviscerated bodies in the center of the arena. From the grounds outside the amphitheater came the brassy

blasting of trumpets.

The basilisks crawling over the bodies of the Chronics lifted their heads, like hounds sniffing the wind

for a scent. With a piercing, collective shriek, all of the creatures flung themselves into the air. Like an

eruption of smoke, the flock rushed up, drawn to-ward the noise.

Mina's eyes followed them in their swift flight. She saw the pattern of fields and the thatched huts built

along the bank of the river, and wondered if any of the Prey Party had been stupid enough to hide there.

The Valley of the Divinely Inspired was broad and deep, with a sweep of level plain and a belt of thick

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forest bordering the base of the hills. The branches of the trees glistened with moisture. The sight was

stir-ringly beautiful to Mina, even though she had never left the valley and had no knowledge of another

place for comparison.

She shivered in the postdawn chill and peered through the screen of leaves, hoping to sight fellow

members of the Prey Party. She saw no one and she didn't know if that was bad or good. She pushed

back her explosion of thick black hair from her face. It was an unruly mass of loose curls, as if only the

wind had ever combed it. Her eyes were equally black, with a small red N branded between them. She

wore a rag-ged crimson tunic, and her bare arms and legs were almost as brown as the winter grass that

eked out an uncertain existence on the face of the ridge.

Mina steadily gulped the cold air, despite the way it burned her lungs. She knew she had been lucky so

far in eluding the basilisks. Most of the Prey Party had sought concealment in the trees, hoping the

tangle of branches and leaves would provide a protective barrier. Climbing toward the Forbidden Waste

was something that didn't occur to the valley-bred.

Faintly, from the direction of the forest belt she heard a high, gargling shriek. It rose to a shrill pitch of

agony, then ended abruptly as if a hand were clapped over the shrieker's mouth—or the throat had been

torn out by razored talons.

Mina shivered again, rubbing her arms briskly. She wondered who among the Prey Party had fallen

under the fangs and claws of the basilisks. Whether it was one of the three thieves, the slacker or the day-

dreamer, she had no way of knowing. The scream was masculine and she was the only female in the

party, the only one diagnosed and branded a nymphoma-niac.

She didn't necessarily resent the designation since she really didn't know what the word meant. She did

know, however than whenever Chief Eljay needed fe-males for the Prey Parties, he would choose

women at random, classify them as nymphomaniacs and have them branded as such.

The pain of the branding iron was intense but brief. However, it angered Mina enough that she was de-

termined to survive the hunt. She had already man-aged to live through the Day of Tilkut and the Day of

Bast. But the Day of the Basilisk was the last one in the cycle and always the worst. Outdistancing a half-

starved, mangy bear had been childishly easy for her. Evading a hungry cougar was a bit more dicey but

she had accomplished it. Successfully escaping the basilisks was less than a fifty-fifty proposition.

Even as the thought registered, Mina heard a flutter of leathery wings overhead. She stopped breathing

in-stantly. A shadow flitted across the uneven ground in front of her hiding place and circled lazily. She

watched the dark outline slide away over the terrain. When she no longer heard the flap and rustle of

wings, she cautiously began to breathe again. She felt as if she had held her breath for an eternity.

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A series of high-pitched whistling shrieks drew her eyes in the direction of the riverside. Near a cotton-

wood copse she saw a flock of black shapes held aloft by furiously fluttering wings, dipping and diving,

try-ing to flush their quarry. Mina's throat constricted with horror as the half-naked figure of a man

sprang from the shadows between the trees. He ran in long-legged bounds toward the river, and she

recognized him as Chez, the youth diagnosed as a chronic slacker.

There was nothing lazy in the way he raced toward the water. His arms and legs pumped furiously but

the cloud of winged shapes followed him. From that distance, the basilisks reminded Mina of scraps of

dirty cloth, unfolding and folding in the air.

The clot of flying creatures circled, swooped and struck. There was a moment in which the leathery

wings engulfed Chez like a black, writhing cloak, but he continued running. Wet crimson gleamed

briefly between the wriggling bodies. On the ground before her the dark shadow slipped silently over the

ridge face, and she watched the basilisk arrowing toward its brethren.

Mina waited a few seconds more, then slowly backed out of the brush, ignoring the thorns scratch-ing

her arms and legs. Bent in a crouch, looking up at the sky every few seconds, she began climbing to-

ward the ridgeline. She had no plan except to reach it and find a hiding a place among the tumbles of

stone for the rest of the day. She wished she possessed the courage to climb down the far side of the hill

and leave the Valley of the Divinely Inspired entirely. But all that lay there was the Forbidden Waste.

No one, not even Chief Eljay or Dr. Sardonicus knew for sure if the waste was finite or stretched out to

encompass the entire world.

The old legends about brightly lit cities with shiny, cloud-scraping towers at the edge of the waste had

been lost in the stream of time, but leaving the valley was still taboo. The primary reason was simple.

The Forbidden Waste ringed the valley like a vast zone of death. The indisputable fact was that people

who went out into it didn't return. Starvation, thirst, wild ani-mals worse than basilisks or even demons—

people didn't come back from the Forbidden Waste.

Besides, the only reason for even considering leav-ing the valley was the legend of the city of the flam-

ing bird, the phoenix. Mina had never spoken to any-one who had even glimpsed it from afar and the

people of the valley long ago lost faith it even existed. For that matter, they lost faith that anything

existed beyond the waste.

According to legend, the world had once been green with pure water and air that smelled good. Peo-ple

lived in the shining, sky-scraping towers and never worried about anything. Despite the manifest

silliness of those stories, they were still enthralling, particularly to children. Mina had been one of those

children, and her mind still replayed the old fables.

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James Axler - Outlanders - Devil in the Moon

Halfway to the crest of the ridge, she heard a sib-ilant screech and a shadow swooped down from the

sun. Mina dropped flat, banging her elbows painfully on the rock-strewed ground. The clawed tip of a

wing passed so close to her head it yanked a clump of hair out of her scalp. She bit back a cry, knowing

the basilisk would rise to a soaring spiral, pause, then swoop down again.

Mina lunged forward, dragging her way up the slope, scraping her knees raw and bloodying her

knuckles against the sharp rocks. Her heart thudded frantically within the cage of her ribs like a terrified

bird. She knew she wouldn't make the top of the ridge before a basilisk would alight on her head and tear

first into her eyes, then sink its fangs into her jugular.

A gully seemed to appear out of nowhere, a gash through rock and earth like a knife cut. The edges were

hidden by scraggly undergrowth. The lip of the bank was rotten with erosion and it crumbled beneath

her weight. She plunged headfirst down the steep in-cline, but she managed to thrust her arms out in

front of her as if she were diving into the river. The gully floor was covered by a carpet of soft, damp

loam, so she didn't break any bones.

Still, she landed hard enough to jar the air out of her lungs, and she lay on her stomach, gasping and

gagging for a long, panicky moment. Her shoulders ached, and her hands and wrists smarted from

impact with the ground. Then she wobbled to her feet and began a scrambling run along the narrow

channel, not knowing where she was going but dimly aware the path she followed could lead to only one

place—the Forbidden Waste.

However, she had no inclination to climb out. The walls of the ravine provided some protection from the

basilisks. They couldn't pursue her in a straight course since their wingspans were greater than the width

of the gully. It was an eerie place, a labyrinth beneath ground level, a network of nearly identical paths

overhung by roots and tufts of dry grass.

Mina threaded her way through a maze of cracks, slamming her knees and scraping her elbows on out-

croppings. Nevertheless she kept running, stumbling and lurching from wall to wall. The farther she

sprinted, the more rugged the ground became, scat-tered with rock formations sprouting from the

ground. Every bump struck by a bare foot triggered vibrations of pain through her head. She knew she

was leaving a trail a blind Chronic could follow, but it couldn't be helped. The pain of a stitch stabbed

along her left side, the muscles of her legs felt as if they were caught in a vise and her vision was shot

through with gray specks.

Over the rasp and gasp of her own labored breathing, Mina heard the flapping of wings behind her, then

a strident screech of triumphant malice. The skin between her shoulder blades crawled in antici-pation of

a basilisk alighting there. As she realized the basilisks had found her, all the old feelings of terror she

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had known as a child returned. The only reason she didn't begin screaming in horror was that she had no

breath for it.

A stone turned beneath her foot and she lost her balance, staggering for several yards before she fell

heavily. Spitting out bits of dirt and loam, she lifted her head, dragging in great lungfuls of air. Blinking

grains of sand from her eyes, she saw she lay in an open space, a crossroads of sort where four paths

branched off in different directions in the shape of an X.

Mina struggled to her hands and knees, trying to soften the harsh rasp of respiration. Over her gasps, at

the periphery of her hearing, she heard a new sound—a faint, high-pitched whine so distant that she

couldn't really be certain she heard it.

Mina began to rise when she felt a tingling, pins-and-needle sensation all over her body, as if she were

skirting a low-level electrical field. The tingling be-came a prickle. The fine hairs all over her body

seemed to vibrate, to bristle. The air pulsed like the beating of gigantic, invisible heart. At the very

center of the crossroads a hazy, blurred shimmer arose, re-minding her of a ripple made by a fish just

beneath the surface of the river.

She gazed at it, frozen in place. Particles of dirt lifted from the gully floor, whirling and spinning,

growing from a dust devil to a swirling, cylindrical tornado. It glittered as if powdered diamonds were

caught within its powerful vortex.

Mina was so entranced she didn't move until the basilisk sank its needle-pointed fangs into the calf of

her left leg. Screaming, she rolled onto her back, kick-ing frantically at the black shape hanging on to

her leg by tooth and claw. Its whiplike tail coiled around her ankle, and Hell glared out of the obsidian

black eyes.

The basilisk was barely six inches long, though the spread of its talon-tipped wings was more than two

feet. Its body was covered by a layer of blue-black overlapping scales, its three-toed hind feet tipped

with curving claws. The reptilian head appeared to be little more than a maw full of serrated, razor-keen

teeth.

Mina reached for the winged monster, and its fangs crunched into her right ankle, grinding at the bone.

Her hands swatted out, closing around its neck. The basilisk opened its mouth to voice a thin scream.

Mina yanked her torn leg free, then struck with a balled fist at the devil-beast. Bone snapped, and blood

spewed from the creature's maw amid a few fangs, like slivers of ivory.

The basilisk spread its wings and sprang into the air, the whiplike tail lashing and laying open Mina's

left calf. She cried out, more in fury than fear or pain. She stumbled erect, turning to run again, then

lurched to a clumsy halt. Her cry of anger became a wordless call of wonder.

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On the ground rested a shape that resembled a very squat, broad-based pyramid made of smooth, gleam-

ing metal. It appeared to be only one foot in overall width, its height not exceeding ten inches. A waxy,

glowing funnel of light fanned up from the metal apex of the pyramid. It looked like a diffused veil of

backlit fog, with tiny shimmering stars dancing within it.

As Mina stared, the light expanded into a gushing borealis several feet wide, spreading out over the

crossroads. A thready pulse of vibration suddenly tickled her skin, and shadows crawled over the gully

walls, moving in fitful jerks and leaps. A faint hint of a breeze brushed her face and ruffled her hair.

Then a yellow nova brilliance erupted from the tip of the pyramid. Mina felt the shock wave slapping

her breath painfully back into her lungs, tumbling her off her feet. Her eyes stung fiercely.

Mina cleared her vision with a swipe of her hands. Through the blurred afterimage of the flare, she saw

three dark, shadowy shapes shifting in the fan of light. The shadow shapes looked distorted, as if they ap-

proached from a great distance, elongated and strangely silhouetted by a sun she couldn't see. The edges

of the light seemed to peel back and fragment, and a trio of human figures in black stepped out of

nowhere and stood in the crossroads. Behind them, the glowing funnel disappeared back into the small

pyramid, as if it were liquid and had been sucked down into the tip.

Shocked into paralysis by the sight, her limbs fro-zen, her mouth gaping wide, Mina lay in a half-prone

position and stared unblinkingly at the three shadow people standing before her. From throat to fingertip

to heel, they were clad in one-piece black leathery garments that fitted as tightly as doeskin gloves.

Mina couldn't move, not even when one of the shadow people stepped forward, extending a gloved right

hand in a gesture of greeting or help.

Mina looked up at the woman, noting her tall, wil-lowy, athletic figure. A curly mane of red-gold hair

spilled over her shoulders and draped her upper back, framing a smoothly sculpted face dusted lightly

with freckles across her nose and cheeks. The color of pol-ished emeralds glittered in her big, feline-

slanted eyes.

"Hi," said the shadow woman, her lips curving in a smile. "My name is Brigid. I hope we didn't scare

you."

Chapter 2

Brigid Baptiste maintained the friendly, nonthreaten-ing smile and kept her hand extended as a gesture

of help and to show she was unarmed. The raggedly dressed, blood-streaked girl only gazed up at her

through a tangled hayrick of dark hair. Her black eyes bulged with astonishment as if she had never seen

either a smile or an open hand before.

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A cacophony of piercing, whistling shrieks wafted down from above, interwoven with the flapping of

many wings. As if the sound were an electrical cur-rent, the dark-haired girl's expression of blank, gog-

gle-eyed shock became one of soul-deep terror. She crawled like a crippled crab toward the nearest gully

wall, leaving a crimson trail.

Brigid snapped up her head, squinting momentarily against the glare of the midmorning sun. A swarm of

black shapes crossed the blue expanse of sky, re-minding her of a flight of arrows arcing through the air.

The winged creatures wheeled around, circled for an instant in perfect formation, then darted downward.

The beating of a multitude of leathery bat wings sounded like a round of applause made by gloved hands.

"Screamwings," she bit out, taking a hasty back-step, sidling between Kane and Grant. From a sheath at

the small of her back, she drew a Sykes-Fairbairn combat stiletto with a six-inch, razor-keen blade.

The two men flexed their right wrists, and with a faint whine of tiny electric motors, actuators popped

their Sin Eaters from forearm holsters into their wait-ing hands. Stripped down to skeletal frames, the

Sin Eaters were barely fourteen inches long. The extended magazines held twenty rounds of 9 mm

ammo. There was no trigger guard, no fripperies, no wasted inch of design. The Sin Eaters looked

exactly like what they were supposed to be—the most wickedly efficient blasters ever made.

The index fingers of the two men hovered over the firing studs of the weapons as the screamwings dived

and dipped and banked at such a blurring speed, Grant and Kane couldn't draw a bead on them. They

had seen screamwings once before, in the ruins of New-york, and not before or since had they

encountered creatures that were such stripped-down, bare-essential predators. Kane remembered Brigid

theorizing that the screamwing was a species of raptor that had lost its feathers and regressed to its

reptilian roots.

A clot of the creatures described a wide circle around the three standing people, wings slapping, fang-

filled mouths emitting little piping shrieks. Grant, Kane and Brigid tried to keep them framed within

their fields of vision, but the blinding speed and maneuverability of the monsters made it nearly

impossible. A screamwing suddenly broke formation and glided directly toward Brigid, drawn toward

her red-gold hair. She slashed out with her knife, and its edge sheared through the creature's scaled torso,

slic-ing it in two with a single upward stroke.

Voicing a thin prolonged scream, it fell amid a thrash of wings and a spray of crimson. Drawn by the

sound of pain and scent of blood, the circling screamwings banked sharply and fluttered directly to-ward

the three people.

The Sin Eaters roared deafeningly, the slugs racing upward. Brigid caught a glimpse of the girl clapping

her hands over her ears in reaction to the booming reports. Shooting from the hip, Kane and Grant

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seemed to tear a ragged hole in the clot of scream-wings. Scarlet sprinkled down in a warm drizzle, and

small bodies thudded to earth all around them. The monsters didn't flee. Instead of being frightened by

the carnage done to their flock, they grew even more maddened. The dead and injured creatures were set

upon by other members of the swarm.

More and more screamwings lanced across the sky and joined the flock. Black wings beat and thundered

in the narrow gorge as the creatures flew in a tight-ening circle around the three people, like a cyclone

cloud with a hollow center. Claws struck out and lash-ing tails whipped at their eyes.

A screamwing landed on Kane's chest, the curving hind claws trying to secure a grip in the black fabric.

The talons didn't penetrate, but he felt the pressure nonetheless. He crushed the creature's skull with a

swipe of his blaster's barrel and kicked it away from him. He and Grant continued firing short 3-round

bursts. With each shot and dying scream, the outraged survivors shrieked all the louder. Some of them

turned on one another to vent their frustrated rage, talons raking raw strips from scaled bodies.

For the next minute, the black winged monsters rained down, fairly carpeting the gully floor with an

ankle-deep layer of feebly snapping jaws and thrash-ing tails.

Then, like a cloud of billowing black smoke, the surviving screamwings broke formation and veered

away. They hovered a few seconds, shrieking in frus-tration, then soared into the sky, the flapping of

then-wings and keening cries fading. Grant, Brigid and Kane released their pent-up breath in profanity-

seasoned exhalations. The men thumbed the magazine toggle release of their guns and ejected the empty

clips. They inserted fresh ones in the swift, smooth motions that came of long practice.

Kicking a small scaled body out of his way, Grant stepped toward the girl. She cringed against the gully

wall, a high-pitched wail of fright starting up her throat.

"Don't go any closer," Brigid said. "You're scar-ing her."

Grant's face contorted in a frown, but he came to a halt. A down-sweeping mustache showed jet-black

against the coffee-brown of his skin. Beneath it, his heavy-jawed face was set in a perpetual scowl.

Brigid knew that the more Grant frowned, the more satisfied he felt with circumstances.

The sprinkling of gray in his close-cropped black hair gave him a patrician air, like somebody's cur-

mudgeonly but essentially good-hearted uncle. A very broad-shouldered and thick-chested man, Grant

stood four inches over six feet and he realized to the girl cowering in the gully, he had to have seemed

like a ferocious giant, a bit of Outland folklore come to life.

"We just rescued her," he said, trying to soften his lion's growl of a voice to a soothing rumble. "She

should be grateful, not scared."

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JamesAxler-Outlanders-DevilintheMoonDEVILINTHEMOONJamesAxlerIfyoupurchasedthisbookwithoutacoveryoushouldbeawarethatthisookisstolenproperty.Itwasreportedas"unsoldanddestroyed"tothepublisher,andneithertheauthornorthepublisherhasreceivedanypaymentforthis"strippedbook."FirsteditionMay2002ISBN0-373-63...

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Axler, James - Outlander 21 - Devil in the Moon - The Dragon Kings, Book 1.pdf

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Axler, James - Outlander 21 - Devil in the Moon - The Dragon Kings, Book 1

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