“The wind keeps taking it into the trees,” he says. “Have to find some way to make it rise faster.”

“I’m sure you’ll make it work,” Fifer says. “Oh, your wife said to tell you dinner is almost ready.”

“Thanks,” Roland replies. “I just need to get it down before I return. Tell her I will be a few minutes.”

“Sure thing,” he assures him. Turning his back on Roland, Fifer begins making his way back across the clearing. He grins to himself when he recalls how this clearing came to be.

It was early last winter, shortly after their return from Ironhold. James had been out here working on some experiment or another and had laid waste to a swathe of the forest. By the time the fires died out, almost forty acres had burned. In the middle of the ashes was a clearing several hundred feet across devoid of anything living.

James had come out of it looking the worse for wear. Most of his hair had been singed and he said if he hadn’t erected a shield in time, he wouldn’t have lived to tell about it. When asked, he didn’t go into very much details on what he was doing or why.

After that and during the rest of the winter, things were in high gear. He wasn’t told the particulars of what was transpiring and had the feeling no one but James, maybe Illan, knew the whole truth. But from what was going on, he knew James no longer was going to be content with waiting for danger to come to him. He was going to take it to them.

During the early winter months, Delia made many trips to and from The Ranch, much more frequently than she ever had before. The items she was dropping off here didn’t make much sense: small, round glass balls with a hole in the top, not to mention the barrels of lantern oil. Didn’t make much sense to Fifer.

Once the snows had set in around December, Delia and the pit fighters she uses as guards rolled into The Ranch and stayed. She began training the recruits in the use of slings. To the chagrin of Jiron, his sister Tersa joined the others in learning the use of the sling. James had a slug belt made for each of them, similar in design to the one he uses.