Read Online The Dragon Round by Stephen S. Power - Free Book Online Page B

coast and the river, where they can trade and stop ashore for water and game.” He yanks the larboard bow gunwale free. “Ships from the Dawn Lands ride the river north to Jolef to trade with us, then work their way home down the coast. There’s no profit in the sea itself. Besides, there were no other ships at Chorem planning to cross.” He gets to work on the starboard quarter gunwale.
    â€œWhat about whalers?” she says.
    â€œWhat about needles in haystacks?”
    â€œPirates?”
    â€œNow pirates are more likely. Then we’d have the pleasure of being violated before we died.”
    â€œWe?” she says.
    â€œThe Ynessi don’t discriminate. Any Aydeni ships out here that you know of?”
    â€œThat’s just propaganda,” she says. “Fear-mongering. Ayden has no navy, unless you count trade wagons. And if we did, we still wouldn’t attack Hanosh. Where’s the profit, as you say?”
    â€œWe?” he says. “You can take the woman out of Ayden . . .”
    â€œI’m not ashamed of being Aydeni,” Everlyn says. “I’m ashamed of Ayden, at least when it comes to the golden shield.”
    â€œThe luxury of principles is fading as quickly as that of good boat building,” he says. “That’s why I’m here.”
    As the sun falls toward the west and the small moon, Med, appears in the east, Jeryon pulls free the last piece of gunwale from the starboard transom. He surveys Everlyn’s neatly tied coils of painter strands. “Where did you learn that hitch?”
    â€œWe have knots on land too, you know.”
    He shrugs and saws the gunwale pieces in half. Once this is donehe flips them over, takes off a sandal and uses it to bang out a nail. A muffled clang follows each blow.
    â€œHow can you hammer with leather?” she says.
    â€œIt’s leather on the outside,” he says. “There’s a thick steel plate in each heel. They give me a heavy tread on deck. Sailors don’t like a sneaky captain. They like to know where he is, and he likes them to know where he is.”
    â€œAnd that’s not sneaky?” she says.
    â€œThat’s command,” he says. “Collect the nails as I bang them out. We’ll need them.”
    The big moon, Ah, is up when he arranges the forward pieces of gunwale into a rough rectangle, the aft pieces into a smaller, neater one, and lays across each two pieces of transom gunwale. Then he nails them together.
    â€œThere. Paddles,” he says. “Or something approaching paddles. And to make sure we don’t lose them . . .” He enlarges two nail holes in the end of each with a hair pin and threads a strand of painter through them. He ties the forward assemblage to his right wrist, motions for her to hold up her left wrist and ties the other to it. She doesn’t know the knot, and he makes it too quickly for her to follow.
    He kneels amidships, she kneels beside him, and facing the horizon they paddle in easy tandem for the League. The spare nails jingle pleasantly in her pocket.
    After a few dozen strokes he waits until the poth’s not looking and changes his grip to match hers. It’s more comfortable and efficient.
    3
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    Jeryon jerks awake: Where’s his paddle? His right arm dangles over the starboard gunwale. His fist is full of water. He digs into the sea with both hands until he remembers the strand of painter. He claspshis wrist and draws the paddle to him from where it had been drifting astern. He sits on his heels, catching his breath.
    The poth is slumped over her gunwale. Her arm and paddle aren’t in the boat either. Just looking for them makes him feel so dizzy he has to lean a hand on the bottom. He rolls his head slowly to match the spinning inside. He lays the back of his forefinger on her neck. It’s very dry. He fishes around beneath her hand, finds the strand from her wrist, and pulls