Sword of Wrath (Kormak Book Eight) Read Online Free PDF

orders for you. You are to continue with your infiltration of the Terra Novan rebels. You will travel with the rebel leader, disguised as one of his bodyguards. You will offer the rebels all assistance and all possible incentives to throw off the shackles of their Siderean oppressors.”
    “Very good, mistress.”
    “Additionally, you have a new and more important mission.”
    “More important than inciting rebellion in the colonies of our most unshakable enemy?”
    Marketa shrugged. The gold from the Far Colonies was the source of Siderea’s wealth, and that wealth was the source of King-Emperor Aemon’s power. Cutting the supply off would defang the Solar snake at a stroke. What could be more important than that? But the urgency of the Mistress of Magic’s sending had been unmistakable.
    “You are, and I quote these words exactly as the Mistress of Magic sent them, to make finding the source of Vorkhul’s coffin your highest priority. You must locate where it came from, and find out whether there are any more like it. This is a matter of the utmost importance to the safety of the Courts of the Moon and all their loyal subjects.”
    Marketa paused for a moment and then spoke the code phrase she had been given. “This is a geas of uttermost compulsion. The willing servant accepts his fate.”
    The changeling froze. Marketa could almost see the geas taking hold. The changeling’s muscles flexed. The tendons in its neck stood out. She wondered at the power of the spell that it could have such visible effects on its subject. It was true then—the changelings were imprinted with deep compulsions enforcing their obedience to their master’s will.
    “I will obey in word, thought and deed. I will not cease in my endeavours until this mission is accomplished. Only death will keep me from it.”
    Marketa wondered if she could have given the changeling different instructions, ordered it to kill her enemies while under the spell’s compulsion. It was an interesting thought but she would never dare put it to the test.
    The changeling paused for a minute. Its smile was blank, unreadable. Perhaps it was only leaving the expression on its face as a placeholder as it thought. “Would I be right in thinking this has something to do with the Guardian also being dispatched to Terra Nova?”
    “How do you know of that?”
    “Our agent within the chapter house told me.”
    “You went into the chapter house?”
    The changeling smiled and nodded. It was confident indeed if it would do that. Few Lunars would voluntarily enter the precincts of the Order of the Dawn. Fewer yet had ever come out.
    “That was unwise.” The changeling shrugged. She did not like the way the creature treated her with sly disrespect.
    “You will travel to Terra Nova. Give any aid you can to the rebels while you are there. Offer them any inducement to rise against the usurper Aemon. But most of all, you will keep watch on the Guardian. If he gets any leads on the provenance of the sarcophagus of Vorkhul, you must get them too, and find it first.”
    “And if he gets in the way, Mistress, shall I kill him?”
    She considered it. The killing would take place far from here, and it would not lead directly back to her. The Order of the Dawn was known to be obsessive about avenging its people. “If you must,” she said. “We must find out where that coffin came from and if any more of the Eldrim are imprisoned there.”
    “It was not sent by one of our agents then?” the changeling asked.
    “We are not so stupid,” she said. But she wondered whether that was the case. At the Courts of the Moon, often the right claw did not know what the left claw was doing.
    “Be about your business,” she said, dismissing the changeling from her presence, if not from her mind.

Chapter Four
    T he bodyguards showed Kormak into the king’s study. Portraits of the royal family stared down from the walls. Racks of scrolls and cabinets full of books hugged the walls. A