Free Sands of Aggar: Amazons of Aggar Book 3 by Chris Anne Wolfe Page B

unconscious Circle members draped over the cots and bunks.
    In the last room before the stairs to the common room, Adrian spotted Rox asleep sitting up in the corner, cocooned in a wool blanket. Adrian paused, watching the older woman sleep, one hand over the lifestone mark on her wrist. She contemplated entering the room, studying her more closely when her blanket bounced and Fisk popped his head out, watching Adrian with bared teeth. Adrian scowled. She didn’t need to be discovered by the Circle because of an angry ferret.
    She headed back down the stairs toward the common room and with a few whispered phrases she was shrouded again in shadow.



Chapter Six

    Rox stared at a bramble bush, watching a collection of bumble bees dance across the small white and pink blossoms. She lay on her bedmat, an arm propped under her head, the ground rough and sharp. Fisk rested in the cradle of her side, his head propped on her hip, his weight comforting. In the distance she could hear the screams, smell the smoke rising over the nearby hills. She focused more intensely on the bees, dancing and spinning over the flowers, oblivious to the nearby destruction. She willed her mind to join them, leaping from plant to plant, nothing weighing on her mind but pollen and honey.
    A woman’s piercing, strangled scream shattered through the noise of the raid to be immediately silenced. Rox clenched her jaw, her fists curled into hard fists. She refused to take part in the Circle’s raids, but she was no less accountable for their actions. She protected them, even guided them when their maps proved inaccurate. It might as well be her dagger that had silenced the woman’s cries. But there was no other option. No choice. She needed to be paid.
    The pound of hooves echoed through the brush, sending a cloud of dust into the air. Circle members had been traveling back and forth between town and the camp all day to offload plunder. Rox didn’t move as a band of a half dozen men returned, their horses weighed down with money, antiques and other valuables.
    “We don’t have time to drag them along.”
    “We have more than enough men to send a party back to the Core. No use wasting such hardy stock.”
    Another dozen men returned, the sounds of their party interspersed with whimpers and muffled moans. Rox sat up and spun toward the returning marauders. Each raider pulled a soot-covered, bound and gagged women behind their horses, their bruised and raw hands tied to long leashes attached to the raiders’ saddles.
    Rox leapt to her feet, her eyes blazing rage. “No slaves.” She charged forward, confronting the band of marauders.
    “You have no authority here.” Calder rode up fast, circling around the rest of his men. Rox’s breath caught in her throat. A young girl, no older than 4 tenmoons, was bound and draped over the back of Calder’s saddle. Her blond curls hung limp with dirt and sweat around her panicked green eyes. Her skin was covered in ash, smelling of fire and blood. Long streams of tears left filthy streaks down her cheeks. “We loot as we please.”
    “You’re a monster,” Rox hissed between her teeth. Calder smirked back at her, his eyes full of malicious glee. Calder had never shown an affinity for children before and Rox knew he usually didn’t keep slaves. He had brought the girl to torment Rox.
    Calder slid off his saddle, landing on the ground with a heavy thud. He pulled the girl off the saddle, dropping her on the ground and crouching before her. He grabbed the child’s face, forcing her to look at him as she wept. “Such a fragile little thing, isn’t she? And so very familiar.”
    Rox felt her heart break, her breath heavy in her chest. She could so clearly see another little girl, willowy and wild, her long gold girls whipping through the wind, tangled with leaves and twigs. She could see the child in the young slave’s eyes, imagine the other child covered in ash and soot and blood.
    Calder ran his fingers