The wind blew a ball of spindle weed across the baked-dry land before us, and the heat of the sun caused sweat to prick between my shoulder blades and gather between my breasts, sticking the cloth of my tunic to my skin. I blew a stubborn fly from my face and slid a look at Akyran. The sun had reddened his cheeks and the tip of his nose where his helmet exposed them, and a drop of sweat tracked its way through the stubble-roughened surface of his neck to be absorbed into the collar of his tunic top. A stillness settled over the land as if every creature waited with us for the moment of battle. We stood back from the well opening weapons in hand, each man and woman intently listening, anticipating attack. There was a dull “whomp” that seemed to shudder the ground, and for a moment, the air seemed to draw into the well like a breath as the fire cast by Daerton and Rivyn into their well location several miles away consumed the oxyge