Sourcethief (Book 3) by J.S. Morin Read Free Book Online Page B

a
good look yet to confirm it, but he trusted the instincts that had kept him alive
over the years—a coinblade's life was best suited to someone paranoid.
    Ducking into a storefront, he purchased a
wide-brimmed hat. Though he had not stopped to check his reflection, he knew he
must look ridiculous in it. That was the point. He headed back down the street
he had been on, moving hastily through the crowd and looking all about him as
he went; when he saw what he was searching for, he would know it.  If he was
indeed being followed, then his pursuers could not possibly have lost track of
him. He kept up his pace. The streets of Marker's Point ran miles along the
crescent-moon shape of the city.
    Up ahead, Tanner saw a girl—a young slip of a
thing—carrying a tall wicker basket balanced on her head. If you included the
basket, she was nearly his height. He quickened his pace to catch up with her
and gently slipped the hat from his head and onto the top of the basket she
carried. The hat and Tanner parted ways at the next cross-street.
    “Well, Marker's Point, it has been fun yet again,”
Tanner whispered as a small knot of unsavory ruffians rushed by to pursue the
hat. Denrik's men had been looking for him. Tanner sighed. On the upside, even
had those pirates caught him, all they were likely to do was fetch him on the
captain's behalf. The downside was that it likely meant the end of shore leave.
    Tanner saw no reason to find the crewmen and remedy
the misunderstanding. They would find their own way back to the Fair Trader .
He headed back to the ship himself, making no great haste about it, feeling the
ground pressing up against his feet as he walked and savoring the uniformity,
the predictability of it. He was a swordsman, trained to keep his movements
balanced, so finding his sea legs never caused much trouble, but he found that
he missed the land the more time he spent away from it.
    Upon his arrival back at the Fair Trader's berth, he greeted Captain Zayne. "You were looking for me?" Tanner
had found it interesting that the captain almost never left the ship, no matter
the time they spent in port. He had seen the man with soil beneath his feet
perhaps twice.
    "Indeed I was," Captain Zayne replied, his
gaze wandering past Tanner. It seemed that the captain had expected Tanner to
have been brought to him, not to have come of his own accord. "Come in and
shut the door behind you."
    "Been a while since we had ourselves one of
these nice little talks. What's sticking in your craw?" Tanner asked,
pulling up a chair and tipping back in it, putting his boots up on the table.
"I assume you heard about Relleth."
    "Aye, but I am neither here to beg for terms of
surrender nor did I invite you here to gloat about it," Captain Zayne
replied. He sat down across the table from Tanner, keeping clear of the
rudely-placed feet.
    "Figured that much. What's left to surrender at
this point unless you can convince Safschan and Ghelk and whatever little
city-states signed on with your alliance to throw down their weapons?"
    "I have spent a great deal of time and coin
trying to locate the boy your friends kidnapped."
    "I told you already, they stopped telling me
what was going on with that. They might tell me if I had something from you to
barter, but I don't see why you'd be any more willing to deal now," Tanner
reasoned.
    "No. Indeed, I believe you that they no longer
confide in you. You are stuck here as both my liaison and my keeper. I cannot
tell you how many times I have been within a blade's edge of having you tossed
overboard. But the voice in my head keeps whispering that something will come
up, that I will find a use for you."
    "Aww, that's sweet of you. If you don't mind me
sayin', I'm just as glad you didn't try to feed me to the sharks. As many of
your men as I'd run through, I probably couldn't take on the whole crew; we
both know that. And hey, it's not my fault you and Kyrus can't come to terms on
ending the war—your offer