OrbSoul (Book 6) Read Online Free Page A

and would do little to deter a concerted attack.
       It was little comfort that a pair of slooths had been brought down and slain by Palace Guards as they struggled to land their cargo. Two, under these circumstances, only highlighted the ineffectiveness of the defences.
       More than ever a feeling of helplessness descended upon Pader. It was agonizingly compounded by the loss of Mawnie, and the near-death of Kol. He could not help but feel that the responsibility for both misfortunes was solely his. In the chill winter breeze of early-morning he stepped with a heavy heart out onto the high battlements of Enchantment's Reach and directed his gaze away across the vast low forest. The forest, rust-brown and yellow, and in places almost bare of leaf, was ruffled by the scurrying passage of the breezes. In the furthest distance the mountains of Enchantment were largely obscured by sombre mist, but here and there a shimmering snow-capped peak or humped spur or ridge would show itself briefly, before the veil closed again.
       Issul, Leth, where are you?
       Pader gazed down to the Karai host gathered so far below.
       What defence have we?
       The wind whipped his gown. Pader felt old and tired. He ached in his bones, and in his soul. He thought of Mawnie, poor Mawnie. He grasped the battlements with shaking hands and let the tears flow freely down his cheeks.
       Thoughts of Mawnie returned to him as the morning progressed. He dwelt upon her last days, her tragic pleas and utterances. Had they been anything more than empty ravings? It was so hard to know. Her emotional state had been such that she had for some time been steeped in morbid regret and self-pity. Her loneliness, her sterile, troubled marriage, the loss of her twin, Ressa - still bringing her such melancholy and grief even four years on. Perhaps it was inevitable that Mawnie would collapse. They should have foreseen it.
       But what was it that she had repeated over and over again in her ravings? 'It was me he wanted. In the woods. It was me!'
       Pader recalled that she had summoned Leth one day recently, when she was at least semi-lucid. By Leth's report she had told him that the vile creature that had attacked her and Ressa on that terrible day on Sentinel's Peak, had spoken to her. It claimed it had come from Enchantment, that it was going to destroy all of them. And Mawnie had cried to Leth that, because of what had happened there, she should not live any longer.
       A chill thought struck Pader Luminis: had Mawnie taken her own life? He would make further enquiries, discover whether it was possible that she could have concealed a dagger somewhere close by.
       Then he wondered , did Lord Fectur know that the Legendary Child was the spawn of that vile monster, and that it had come from Ressa's womb? As far as Pader was aware, he did not. But if Fectur had gleaned anything from Mawnie . . .
       He relaxed. No, not even Mawnie knew of the birth.
       But Fectur's agents had encountered Issul. Pader squeezed shut his eyes. Could they possibly have found a means of making Issul tell what she knew? The thought was unbearable. If they had, then Pader could be sure that she no longer lived.
       But no. Fectur would have revealed something, in his attitude, his manner, his poise. Something. If he knew.
       Or would he? The master of deceit?
       Could Radius have told him anything? Radius had admitted to overhearing at least part of a conversation between Pader and King Leth in Pader's apartment in the White Eaglet's Tower. The boy said he had told Fectur something of the content of the conversation, but that he had understood very little and - overcome with guilt - had not listened to all of it, anyway.
       Pader's memory of events was imprecise, with so much occupying his mind. But he recalled that he and Leth had spoken more than once in his apartment in the days preceding Leth's overthrow and disappearance. They had talked in some