Tyrant's Stars: Parts Three and Four Read Online Free PDF Page A

realized the battle wasn’t over. Back at Lamoa Fortress, D had told him about the powers of Valcua’s assassins. Acting on reflex, he put his right hand in his pants pocket. It closed tightly around the hard objects his fingertips brushed, but he thought to himself, These probably won’t do much good.
    The plastic earplugs were something D had given him back at the fortress to use against Courbet.
    “Aren’t you a fine fool,” the duchess said, making no attempt to hide the scorn in her eyes. “Even with that Hunter and the count to protect you, I find you out here in this remote place, all alone, at this hour—you’ve brought this all upon yourself.”
    “No . . . it’s not like that. . .” “At any rate, you’ve been saved. I’m a woman, so I’m more calculating than those other two. But sooner or later you’ll have to repay me for this.”
    As she spoke, the duchess walked up to Matthew. Her right hand seized the collar of his shirt. Without bending her knees or even bracing her feet, she hoisted Matthew into the air with a single slender limb. Using her left hand to point, she said, “If you go that way, you’ll soon be out of the forest. I must be going now. The dawn is like a death knell.”
    And then the pale Noblewoman dissolved into the feeble light, and Matthew collapsed on the spot. There was a dazed look on his face. Though he understood what had transpired, he remained numb. It took a good minute before a human emotion could force its way onto his expressionless face.
    The Noble or his assassins would probably be coming for him again. Matthew got up and started walking with leaden steps in the direction the duchess had indicated. Gradually his pace quickened, and before he’d gone ten strides he was running full speed.
    Sue remembered everything. Though the things that had happened while she was under the hypnotic gaze of her android guard had seemed like a dream, the memories themselves were clear. The spell had been broken when she was immersed in the subterranean river. She’d been immediately pulled out and lifted high in the air—such was the strength of Seurat’s powerful arms. She had no idea how far the dark water had carried her. Perhaps she’d been swept along for two hours or more. Suffering a terrible blow, Sue had lost consciousness.
    Apparently it was the sunlight that awakened her—the light that now hung around her was the glow of dawn. Sue was in a rocky area. Her joints ached, but she was able to move. She looked all around. Seurat’s enormous form had fallen at her feet. He rested there like a stone, not moving a muscle. As he lay flat on his back, Sue pressed her ear to the left side of his chest. A beating came through like a rumbling deep in the earth. On realizing that she was relieved, Sue was terribly surprised. This giant had held her up out of the water the whole time they’d been swept downstream. Although it was his duty, it couldn’t have been an easy thing to do.
    By the girl’s feet yawned a crevasse that looked to be a good thirty feet long. The strange stones and towering boulders that surrounded it appeared to point toward the chasm. A splash resounded. Seurat must have pulled Sue from the subterranean waterway and crawled this far before his strength failed him. He was probably injured.
    Running her eyes over Seurat, Sue gasped. A red stain was spreading in the area just beneath the right side of his chest. Something pale jutted from the center of the stain.
    “One of D’s?”
    It was a needle. He’d probably been pierced by it as they were falling into the subterranean waterway.
    A strange feeling took hold of Sue, and the girl was surprised that she was ready to act on it. Though it was a perfectly natural instinct under the circumstances, Sue knew she would be inviting her own destruction.
    You have to help those who are suffering, she thought. The giant was an assassin sent to drag her into Valcua’s deadly trap. They were fighting for their