Sennar's Mission by Licia Troisi Read Free Book Online

Knight to orderly?” she asked her teacher, clearly upset. “It seems to me there’s no shortage of squires for this sort of job.”
    “I’m the one who proposed you,” Ido responded calmly.
    “Well, thank you. I can’t wait to take a walk in the woods.”
    “Do not take this lightly. It’s time you began acting on your own. Your training is going well. You could become a knight within the year.”
    Nihal whirled to look at him, her eyes beaming.
    Ido maintained his composure. “Up until now, you’ve been glued to my side like a chick to its mother hen. This time, though, you’ll have to trust in your own strength. The mission itself is not complicated, but you’ll be traveling along borders where your safety is by no means guaranteed. It will be good training.”
    Nihal had done all her combat training on the battlefield. The other aspects of war were unknown to her. At the very worst, she told herself, it would be a learning experience.
    “Besides, you’ve been trapped here in the Land of the Sun for months now. A bit of sea air will do you some good,” the dwarf concluded.
    “Sea air? But the camp isn’t on the coast.”
    “You’ll see. …” Ido grinned. “You’ll see.”

    Nihal left the base with the first light of dawn. No Oarf for this trip—the mission required a certain level of secrecy, and large, flying reptiles tended not to slip by unnoticed. She mounted a horse and set off, feeling rather unenthusiastic about the journey.
    There had been a time, before the destruction of Salazar, when she loved to travel. She remembered how thrilled she felt when she was a little girl and got to go with Livon when he traveled to see his suppliers. Or how much she’d enjoyed galloping to the Land of Water with Soana and Sennar, where Sennar’s induction ceremony as a sorcerer had been held. It was the first time she’d left the Land of the Wind, and the entire journey had seemed full of wonder. Centuries had passed since then, or so it seemed.
    If only Sennar were around. It was always great camping with him, sitting around the fire, looking up at the stars, talking about everything and nothing.
Who knows where he is now.
    Even with Ido’s company, the trip might have been more enjoyable. Instead, left to herself, she felt defenseless against the ghosts of her past. As the base faded in the distance, her thoughts turned gloomy.

    The Land of the Sun and the Land of the Sea shared an enormous forest, the most expansive in the entire Overworld, the Inner Forest.
    Its landscape was monotonous—when Nihal crossed the border, after two days of travel, the forest continued to be a dense maze. The air, though, had changed, laced now with the smell of salt.
    Nihal had never seen the ocean. Just the smell of it made her want to press onward until she reached the coast. She was reminded of stories Sennar had told her about his land. The Small Sea, only a short distance from the border of the Land of Water. The Dessa Lighthouse, the last vestige of the Overworld’s bounty. The vastness of the ocean.
And perhaps, farther still, the Underworld.
She felt a pang of nostalgia.

    Throughout the journey, she kept up her guard, especially at night. The Great Land, an undisputed territory of the Tyrant, bordered the woods, and they were overrun with spies. Human spies, for the most part—the Fammin were in no way fit for such delicate work. Slaughter was their specialty, thanks to their long, powerful arms, ideal for crushing, not to mention the sharply clawed hands and feet they used to slash their victims and their malevolent snouts with mouthfuls of flesh-tearing teeth. Massive, completely covered in a hideous, reddish, frizzy fur, they were suited only for inflicting horror.
    The Tyrant preferred to employ humans and dwarves when it came to surveillance of the Great Land’s borders. They gathered information regarding the offensive strategies of the Army of the Free Lands and murdered anyone who dared cross the