Crown Thief Read Online Free

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      Even once we were in the clear, it was a long time before Alvantes called, "Rein in! Stop here." Motioning towards a muddy side road, he summoned two of the guardsmen with a snapped, "Panchez, Duero, follow me," and to Gueverro, added, "Be watchful, Sub-Captain."
      They weren't gone long. Their return was heralded by ear-racking sounds of squeaking and braying. When they came into view, Panchez was leading Duero's mount and Duero was guiding a mule, which in turn drew a small, ramshackle cart.
      The look Estrada gave Alvantes was questioning to the point of accusation.
      "Borrowed," he said, not meeting her eye.
      I smirked. Interesting how it had a different name when guard-captains did it.
      To Saltlick, he added a curt, "Get in, please."
      Saltlick eyed the vehicle uncertainly. Alvantes had used this trick to smuggle him out of Altapasaeda, but that had been in a large wagon full of straw, not a donkey-cart covered with a scrappy tarpaulin.
      Nevertheless, with considerable effort and obvious discomfort, Saltlick managed to scrunch himself into the back. Once he was settled, Duero drew the tarpaulin over. To my trained eye, the end the result looked much like an extremely cramped giant covered with an extremely small sheet.
      "That should fool anyone," I said. "So long as they're blind. Or stupid. Or a very great distance away."
      Alvantes glared at me. "All the more reason to hurry."
      However, the cart, amongst its many failings, had been designed for neither speed nor the weight of giants. It was a long and miserable hour later before we turned east into the outskirts of the Altapasaedan Suburbs.
      The Suburbs was so called because Altapasaedans didn't like to use the word "slum". The choice of nomenclature did nothing to change its nature. It was a dingy and ever-changing shanty town, sprung up long ago in the lee of the north wall and somehow never made permanent. In short, it was everything Altapasaeda wasn't: poor, filthy, tumbledown and given over to degrees of crime that the guard hardly bothered to interfere with.
      Or so I'd always thought. We hadn't travelled far through the mazy streets before we came to a building more solidly constructed than those around it – built of sturdy timber, rather than wood that looked as if it had been dragged from the river, and with a door that would resist anything shy of a battering ram.
      Alvantes dismounted and rapped three times, followed by two short taps, a pause, and one last knock. After a few moments, the door swung open, a slit at first and then fully. A swarthy, dark-eyed man stood in the gap. As he turned his head, I saw that the whole left side of his otherwise handsome face was puckered by white blotches of scarring. "Guard-Captain," he said. "It's good to see you, sir. With the stories flying around, I wasn't sure I would again."
      "Not here, Navare." Alvantes turned to the rest of us. "Quickly… get the giant inside."
      To his credit, Navare barely looked shocked when Duero whipped the tarpaulin back and Saltlick began to unfold himself from the cart. He was certainly quick enough to move out of the way, though.
      "Gueverro, Estrada, Damasco, go in. Duero, see that the cart's returned – discreetly, please. The rest of you, find stabling for the horses. Not all in the same place if you can avoid it."
      Navare greeted each of us with a tilt of his head as we went by, and to Gueverro said, "Good to see you, too, sir."
      The interior consisted of a single room. If it was large for the Suburbs, it was small by any other standards, housing only a camp bed, a stove and a table. The low ceiling left Saltlick no option but to squat in the middle of the floor, and his presence left precious little space for the rest of us.
      Closing the door, Alvantes said, "I know you'll have questions, Navare, but they'll have to wait. These are my travelling companions. The giant is Saltlick. This is Marina Estrada,