Deathstalker Honor Read Online Free PDF

hands. . . . Most of it from people who deserved to die, but not all. For every clear villain who’d died at his hand, there’d been a hundred men who were just soldiers following orders, doing what they thought was right. Protecting a corrupt Empire because all the other alternatives seemed worse. Brave fighters who’d died because they were unfortunate enough to stand between Owen Deathstalker and his destiny. So many faceless dead. He dreamed of them sometimes.
    There was a child he’d crippled and killed in the grimy back streets of Mistport. It had been an accident. And she had been trying to kill him at the time. But none of that mattered. He’d struck out blindly, in the rage of battle, and the result was a young girl lying in the blood-spattered snow. He’d never forgiven himself for that, and never would. If there was any purpose to the warrior he’d become, it was to put an end to a system that produced children like that. And perhaps to protect people like that from people like him.
    That was what it meant to be a Deathstalker.
    He glanced across at Hazel, striding determinedly beside him. Her long, ratty red hair fell down around a sharp and pointed face. Not conventionally pretty perhaps, but then Hazel d’Ark didn’t believe in being conventional in anything if she could help it. Owen thought she was beautiful, but then, he was biased. He loved her, quietly, secretly. She wasn’t at all the kind of woman he’d thought he’d fall in love with, and certainly not the kind of woman he was supposed to marry, to continue the centuries-old Deathstalker line, but he loved her nonetheless. Despite all the reasons, or maybe even because of them. Hazel was bright and funny, honest when it suited her, and the bravest woman he’d ever known. Not to mention hell on wheels with any weapon you could name. He admired her immensely, but was careful to keep it to himself. She’d only take advantage. She was confident when he was not, cautious when he forgot to be, and she never forgot what they were fighting for. And he knew that if he ever mentioned the word love, she’d leave him flat. Hazel had made it clear, on more than one occasion, that she didn’t believe in things like love. They tied you down, made you vulnerable, and led to subjects like commitment and trust and openness, none of which had any place in Hazel’s life. So he accepted what warmth and friendship she offered on her own terms, and hoped. They were together, and if that was all he could have, it was more than he’d ever had before.
    “Why are we walking?” said Hazel suddenly. “I made sure they loaded gravity sleds on board before we left.”
    “Sleds would show up on the Standing’s scanners,” Owen said patiently. “We, on the other hand, have proved invisible to most scanners ever since we passed through the Maze. Just another useful side effect that no one understands. So we walk, and hopefully slip through Valentine’s defenses unnoticed.”
    “Hate walking,” said Hazel, scowling. “Makes my back ache. If God had meant us to walk, he wouldn’t have given us antigrav.”
    “Admire the scenery,” suggested Owen.
    “Ha bloody ha. Last time I walked through anything like this, all the field toilets had failed at once.”
    “Walking is supposed to be very good for you.”
    “So is eating sensibly and abstinence, and I hate them too. I’m warning you right now, Deathstalker: I’d better get to kill a hell of a lot of people at your Standing, or there’s going to be trouble.”
    “Oh, I think I can guarantee that,” said Owen. “The one thing you can be sure of is that we have absolutely no friends at all at the Deathstalker Standing.”
     
    The Deathstalker Standing was a great stone castle set on top of a hill, its pale gray stone marked here and there by damage and burns from energy weapons from when the Empire had laid seige to the castle to capture its then Lord, David Deathstalker. Now it suffered the occupation