Are the sentences right?

Could you, please, tell me if the sentences are ok or need remaking, and how they should be recasted?

1) And now, sitting in the back of the wagon with her back toward Chiledu, she felt his look on her nape.

2)Only now/then she felt that because of the heat her mouth had become dry.

I think "only then" is right. If so, do I need to reverse the verb order?

3) The koumiss (it's a Kazakh national drink made of hourse milk) was warm and sour, and it got itchy in the nose from it.

4) Soon the country became much lower, and the ground became not as dry and hard. In front, blurred in the hot trembling air, there appeared a dark stripe of willow thickets. The oxen, smelling the water, went faster, Chiledu’s horse raised its head and moved (pricked up) its ears.

5) Dazzling patches of light flashed out on the river, and waves quietly lapped against the bank overgrown with grass.