At midday, the expedition halted in the dry bed of a dark rock wash where a high fiery bank cast a ten-foot ribbon of cool, purple shadow across the gravel.
The heat had begun to rise from the southern plain. Not the moist, heavy heat of the river bottoms, but a fierce, desiccating heat wave that dried the sweat on Kezra’s forehead before it could run into her eyes. Twelve miles ahead, the white surface of Saltglass had begun to shimmer with mirages. Inverted images of dark fiery buttes floating above shimmering sheets of phantom water that vanished whenever she adjusted her sighting magnifying glass.
Fellis Dain unhitched the mule’s water carriers. He poured half a gallon of boiled mint tea into a shallow wooden bucket. The grey animal drank with eager, rhythmic gulps, its throat working smoothly, its ears twitching toward the north where the two Host scouts had halted on their distant knoll.
Paxa Sel sat on an overturned pack frame, her boots unlaced to cool her swollen ankles, her water bottle resting on her knee.
“You and Yseld were debating the ethics of war on the march, Kezra,” Paxa said. She took a small sip of water and holding it in her mouth before swallowing. “I heard your voices through the dust. The question of armed enemies in a castle is a complex knot. Philosophers in the capital have written five hundred books on military trick without untying a single thread.”
