"Simon R. Green - Deathstalker - 4 - Deathstalker Honor" - читать интересную книгу автора (Green Simon R)

signs. All right, it's now officially safe to disembark. For old times' sake, I've put down
at the exact spot where Hazel first encountered you, Owen. Just call me a silly old
sentimentalist."
"Shut up, Oz."
They made their way down to the airlock, and then Owen waited patiently while Hazel
weighed herself down with a few more guns and ammunition belts. For all her claims of
invulnerability, she still never felt really comfortable about going out in public unless
she was carrying more guns than the average armed patrol group. Owen leaned against
the steel bulkhead and remembered how things had been the first time he'd met Hazel
d'Ark.
He'd been on the run from his own security guards, badly wounded, fleeing desperately
in a damaged flyer. They'd shot him down only a few miles from his Standing. He'd
staggered away from the burning wreckage, bleeding profusely, and set his back against
a nearby tree, to hold him up while he made his last stand.
And then Hazel had appeared out of nowhere to save him from his enemies, cutting
them down like a glorious if somewhat shop-soiled valkyrie, and together they'd fled
Virimonde in the first Sunstrider. Owen had never been back since. He'd always meant
to, but the rebellion never gave him time. He'd spent his childhood on a dozen different
planets, as his father darted around the Empire pursuing his endless intrigues. But
Virimonde had been his and his alone, his haven from a Family and a warrior's destiny
he'd never wanted. The only place he'd ever thought of as home.
"Come on, stud, let's get this show on the road. I haven't killed anyone in hours, and I'm
starting to get twitchy."
And then there was Hazel, large as life and twice as dangerous, carrying enough guns to
start her own war. Owen had to smile.
"What's so funny?" she said suspiciously.
"Oh, nothing. It's just that according to Oz, we've touched down at the exact spot where
you and I first met."
"You always were too nostalgic for your own good, Deathstalker. Crack that airlock
and let's get our feet dirty. I didn't come all this way just to stand around."
"You don't have a single sentimental bone in your body, do you. Hazel?"
"For which I thank the good Lord daily. Sentiment just gets in the way of getting the
job done."

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Simon R. Green - Deathstalker 04 - Deathstalker Honor


Owen sighed and opened the airlock. The planet's air wafted in, and he took a deep
breath, expecting the old, familiar scents of grass and earth and growing things. Instead
he coughed harshly as his lungs were filled with hot, dry air choked with dust. Owen
and Hazel looked at each other, and then Owen stepped cautiously out onto the planet
he had once owned. The sky was dark and overcast, the light gray and lifeless. Where
once there had been green fields and the rich foliage of rambling woods, now there was
only churned-up mud for as far as he could see in any direction. No fields or crops or
low stone boundary walls, just the mud, dark and gritty with trodden-in ashes.
For a moment Owen thought he must have come to the wrong planet. Nowhere on the
pastoral world of Virimonde had ever looked like this. But of course it did, now. Just as