Read Online A Dragon at Worlds' End by Christopher Rowley - Free Book Online

preparing herself for death before she lost consciousness.
    Relkin and the dragon had heard many terrible tales during their time, but this struck home in a way that many had not. Their eyes met in a grim, nonverbal communication.
    Later, when they went to check the nets, they spoke.
    "I know what you are thinking, boy. I am thinking the same thing."
    "I have been thinking about it, Baz. I know the Lady would want us to help her. The Lady hates slavery more than anything. She would do it."
    "Then we agree. Question is, how?"
    "Build a boat."
    "Boy know how to build a boat?"
    "Not yet."

Chapter Five
    The next few weeks brought some surprises.
    The first boat wasn't strong enough. Relkin had attempted to make rough planks by splitting a certain type of conifer. These balks of wood were then held together with wooden pegs made laboriously from a much harder type of wood. Lumbee assisted in making the pegs and scouting the forest for the right kind of trees. A few pieces were taken out of Lumbee's boat and used intact in the new one.
    Now healed and fit, Lumbee came into her element in the trees. She could climb almost as fast as a monkey, and her strong, effective tail was put to constant use. Relkin found himself quite outmatched when it came to climbing trees, something that he'd always prided himself on since boyhood. It took a little getting used to, for not only was he outmatched at tree climbing, but by a girl.
    Still, they worked well together. Lumbee found useful trees. Bazil hewed them down with Ecator and all three strove to haul them out and split them. The effort took a month of hard work before they finally floated the boat, a flat-bottomed scow. It was crude and tended to list a little to one side, but it was beautiful to their eyes as it floated there, moored by a thick piece of vine. Relkin spent an hour just gazing at it in slightly smug self-satisfaction. It was the best thing he had ever built.
    Alas, the next morning it broke under the dragon's weight, the pegs separating, the planks coming apart, and the whole thing collapsing, leaving them swimming in the wreckage.
    With frantic efforts, Relkin saved as much as he could from the wreck and started anew. The second boat was larger and cruder, a narrow raft of logs tightly bound together, with a prow stuck on the front made from salvaged parts of the first boat. This boat stood up to the test of Bazil's weight.
    There was a mast, a yard, and a single sail that they made up binding together strips of bark into a square, flexible mat. This became the base on which Relkin poured layers of latex-rich sap from a tree with large dark leaves. Lumbee had exclaimed with delight upon finding some of these trees and immediately began the process of making rubber, a material that her people used extensively in mats, storage containers, and the like. The resulting latex was flexible and waterproof and their sail could be rolled up quickly to the yard when the wind became unfavorable.
    Relkin had never encountered latex before and was much impressed with this material.
    After experiments showed the need, they made a keel board by weaving together stout saplings into a very stiff mat. They cut a space for it to be raised and lowered through a gap between the central logs.
    The effect of the sail with a wind coming directly upstream was quite good, enough to overcome the current and allow them to gain some way and move slowly through the water. By rigging the yard on the mast and adjusting the crude sail, they could also make some way on winds that were not quite directly from behind the boat. Any other kind of wind had them in trouble, however, and forced the sail to be rolled up. Bazil had to provide the motive power then, with Relkin and Lumbee steering with oars set in the prow.
    Bazil's huge paddle was made from woven sapling material, with sheets of liquid latex poured over it and dried in the sun. As soon as each sheet was dry, another would be added. After a while