The Robe of Skulls Read Online Free PDF

forward and brayed loudly before kneeling at her feet.
    “Obviously an animal with sense,” she remarked. “Gubble! Make sure this beast is treated well! I shall call it Figs, and I shall ride it myself.”
    The donkey gave Gubble a triumphant look. Gubble muttered darkly and strapped Lady Lamorna’s bag onto the back of the second donkey before hauling himself into the saddle.
    “Let us go!” Lady Lamorna waved her arm, and the party set off on the winding path that led down to the village of Fracture, and from there onward to Gorebreath.

To say that Foyce was angry would be an understatement. To think that Gracie had escaped her, and — worse still — escaped with what was undoubtedly some kind of magical help, made her blood boil. Her head was still fogged by the sleeping spell, but with every step, her mind was growing clearer. As she hurried along the path to Gorebreath, she ground her teeth and stamped her feet, and dreamed up more and more terrible ways of getting her revenge. “I’ll boil her in her own magic soup,” she promised herself. “I’ll make her work until her fingers are nothing but bone. I’ll keep her in the cellar until she’s green with mold —”
    Foyce stopped. In front of her was a clear footprint — the footprint of a small worn shoe. Foyce chuckled nastily, and within seconds she had found the shoe itself. She picked it up and turned it over. Yes! There was sand on the sole. Foyce frowned. She glanced back up the path. The footprint had been very clear. Too clear? And there was grass between the footprint and the shoe . . . surely the sand should have been rubbed from the sole?
    If it hadn’t been for the lingering effects of the Trueheart Stew, Foyce would have gone back and peered over the edge of the rocks — and if she had, she would have seen Gracie, and Gracie’s fate would have been sealed. As it was, Foyce stood and considered it, then shook her muddled head.
    “No,” she decided. “No. The little worm isn’t clever enough. She’d never think to play a trick like that! But she must be near — this shoe’s still warm. I’ll find her and catch her and twist her skinny little arms off!”
    And Foyce flew on down the path and into the darkness of the forest that crouched around the base of Fracture Mountain. On and on she ran, until her breath grew ragged and she was finally forced to stop to rest. She found a twisted tree and leaned against it, panting.
    “Where can the disgusting little slug be?” she wondered. “Surely I should have found her by now.”
    Foyce pulled the shoe from her pocket and smelled it. Then, after looking around to make sure there was nobody watching, she kneeled down to sniff the path.
    When she stood up, her face was livid.
“She’s not been this way at all!”
Foyce stomped a clump of buttercups into the ground with such force that they were churned into a muddy paste. “She’s slipped away from the path! But
where
?”
    And then, her mind now quite free from the spell, she remembered the footprint and the shoe, and she spat. “So she went down the rocks, did she? But she
must
be going to Gorebreath. There’s nowhere else. So what I’ll do is find her there . . . and won’t I make her wish she’d stayed at home with me!” Foyce spat again.
    She was about to walk on when she heard the faint jingle of a harness behind her. Immediately wary, she slipped behind the tree and into the gloom of the thick, tangled undergrowth, and she waited to see who was coming.

    A witch?
    Foyce stood very still as Lady Lamorna and Gubble trotted past her on their donkeys; she stared, taking in every detail. As they disappeared around a bend in the path, she moved quietly out of her hiding place and followed, thinking hard. She had never heard of a witch in Fracture. But what else could the old hag be? It was true she had no pointed hat, but she smelled of evil. Foyce knew there was a sorceress who lived in the castle high above the