Deathstalker Honor

Table of Contents

 

 

“The action is frenzied . . . manages to consistently entertain, with some wondrously quirky and warped characters . . . intriguing ideas and images.”

 

“Green makes a virtue of taking everything to extremes, and has a lot of fun with characters who are inevitably the best (or worst) of their type, thrown into a hectic series of impossible encounters . . . the action is fast and frantic, even compelling.”

 

“A huge novel of sweeping scope, told with a strong sense of legend.”

 

DEATHSTALKER

DEATHSTALKER REBELLION

DEATHSTALKER WAR

DEATHSTALKER HONOR

 

 

 

 

TWILIGHT OF THE EMPIRE

BLUE MOON RISING

BLOOD AND HONOR

DOWN AMONG THE DEAD MEN

SHADOWS FALL

ROC

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First published by Roc, an imprint of Dutton NAL, a member of Penguin Putnam Inc.

 

First Printing, November, 1998

Copyright © Simon R. Green, 1998

 

 

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eISBN : 978-1-101-14341-4

 

 

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At the end, when all else fails, there is still honor.

They were, after all, official heroes of the great rebellion.

Owen Deathstalker; outlawed aristocrat and reluctant warrior.

Hazel d’Ark; ex-clonelegger and ex-pirate.

Jack Random; the legendary professional rebel.

Ruby Journey; the infamous female bounty hunter.

Together, they fought impossible odds in the name of freedom and justice, and triumphed time and time again. They gathered an army of the bold and the valiant, the downtrodden and the desperate, and led them to victory. And in the great steel and brass Palace of the homeworld Golgotha, they threw down the Empress Lionstone XIV and destroyed the Iron Throne of Empire forever.

They should have been feted and honored, raised to the heights and celebrated throughout the civilized worlds.

They should have lived happily ever after.

Unfortunately, life isn’t like that.

CHAPTER ONE

On the good ship
Sunstrider II;

“Bounty hunters!” said Hazel d’Ark disgustedly. “After all we’ve done, after all we’ve been through, we end up as nothing more than glorified bounty hunters!”

“Beats our previous occupation,” Owen said mildly. Tall and rangy, with dark hair and darker eyes, he lounged bonelessly in the lounge’s most comfortable chair. “Chasing down war criminals is important work. I don’t know about you, but I find being the hunter rather than the hunted much easier on the nerves. Besides, must be a nice change for you, being legitimate.”

“It’s the principle of the thing!” snapped Hazel. “We used to be somebody! We led armies! We overthrew the Empire! Risked getting our asses shot off time after time, and all so we could end up doing Parliament’s dirty work. Makes me want to puke.”

Owen was thrown for a moment. He would have been prepared to bet good money Hazel wouldn’t recognize a principle if she fell over it on her way back from the toilet. But he rallied gamely and closed the discussion with an accurate if not entirely tactful point of order.

“As I recall, this was all your idea anyway.”

Hazel glared at him, and then turned away to glower at the nearest bulkhead. She was in one of her moods again, and not about to be swayed by mere logic. Owen sighed, but had the sense to do it very quietly. Truth be told, he found bounty hunting something of a comedown too, but all the alternatives had been worse. When he was fighting the rebellion, he’d never really thought about what he’d do when it was all over. Mostly because he was usually too busy trying to keep himself from being killed, but also because he’d never seriously expected to see an end to the rebellion in his lifetime. Most people who stood up to oppose the Empress Lionstone XIV, also known as the Iron Bitch, tended to end up in early graves. Often with bits missing. But then, nothing in his life had ever turned out the way he expected.

Looking back, he seemed to have spent most of his time stumbling from one crisis to another, acted upon as often as acting from his own plans and wishes. There had been schemes and conspiracies all around him, most of which he knew only by the brief shadows they cast across his life in passing. And in the end it seemed to him that for all his intentions and bold companions, and the mysterious powers he’d acquired from the Madness Maze, he had finally come to stand defiantly before the Iron Throne through his own sheer stubbornness, and a refusal to be beaten by odds that would have frightened off a more sensible man.

He’d ended up a hero and a savior of Humanity, and no one had been more surprised than him.

He’d expected to fail. Expected to die, and die horribly. Instead, he’d overthrown an empire that had lasted well over a millennium, deposed its ruler and destroyed her throne, and seen the end of practically every social and political structure he believed in. And that was when the problems had really begun.

Lionstone’s body was barely cold before the vultures began descending. Even while the last battles were being fought, the various parts of the rebel force had begun arguing fiercely with each other over what exactly should replace the old system. Even those few who’d been there at the end couldn’t bring themselves to agree. Owen had wanted things to stay much as they were, with some political reforms and injustices punished. Hazel had wanted it all torn down, with war trials for all the Families, for crimes against Humanity. Jack Random insisted on democracy for all, including all clones and espers and other unpeople. Ruby Journey wanted the loot she’d been promised.

They were soon joined in the Court by representatives of the clone and esper undergrounds, fringe political groups of all shapes and shades, and more religious factions than you could shake a stick at. All of them intent on having their own way. Luckily, they were all too tired to start another war just yet. The argument became a deadlock, and everyone stamped off in different directions to plot and plan anew. For the moment Parliament was running the day-to-day business of Empire, on the grounds that somebody had to, and they at least had some experience in the area. No one trusted them an inch, but there was nothing new there.

Men and women who had once been allies, sworn to defend each other to the death and beyond, now fought each other viciously over points of dogma and precedence. Owen supposed he shouldn’t have been surprised. He was a historian, after all. All the various rebel factions had ever really had in common was a shared enemy. And though they all bandied around words like justice and liberty, they meant very different things to different people.

And then there was the deal Random had made, in the midst of the most desperate fighting, to depose but not destroy the aristocratic Families. Faced with an increasingly victorious army calling for their collective blood, the great Houses had banded together and offered to step down from power and privilege, in return for being allowed to survive as purely economic forces. That was the carrot. The stick was their threat to destroy the economic base of the whole Empire, and crash every civilized world back to barbarism. No one doubted they were quite capable of doing it. And so Random had made the deal, to save the lives of billions, but no one thanked him for it. The man in the street was cheated of his revenge, the rebels accused their beloved hero of selling out his political convictions, and the Families hated him for the loss of their precious nobility. Afterward, Random had to hire a secretary just to deal with all the hate mail and death threats.

As if the situation wasn’t complicated enough, Blue Block had emerged from the shadows to unite and control the Families and scare the crap out of everyone else. Blue Block had been the Families’ secret weapon, a last-ditch defense to be used against the Empress if she ever seriously threatened the Clans’ power and status. The youngest sons and daughters of each House were given to Blue Block, trained and conditioned to be loyal to the Families to the death and beyond. Unfortunately, Blue Block turned out to have an agenda of its own.

In their hidden schools, faceless and nameless instructors taught the younger sons and daughters, none of whom would have inherited title or wealth anyway, that the Families as a class were far more important than any one House. And that loyalty to Blue Block therefore superceded any loyalty to individual Clans. They taught their charges other things too, some of them unspeakable, but that still remained a secret. For the moment.

They were the ones who had come up with the deal to put to Jack Random, and now that they had emerged unblinking into the harsh light of public view, they were the ones who enforced it. The Clans saw what they had unknowingly created and were afraid. And so they all bowed down to Blue Block, and kept their rage and plans for bloody revenge to themselves.