The Elder Gods. David Eddings

size of them trees!’ Ham-Hand exclaimed, staring at the thickly forested shoreline. ‘I ain’t never seen trees that big afore!’ Ham-Hand was perhaps a bit overly excitable, but this time Sorgan could see his second mate’s point. The forest stretching up from the beach consisted of huge trees that were twenty to thirty feet through at the butt and rose like huge pillars to a height of at least a hundred feet before they sprouted a single limb.

      ‘They do seem a bit overgrown, don’t they?’ Ox agreed.

      ‘A bit?’ Ham-Hand said. ‘You could carve two Seagulls out of one of them trees and still have enough wood left over to cook breakfast.’

      ‘We can’t eat trees,’ Sorgan told him. ‘Let’s get the water-casks filled and then go hunt up something to eat before Ox starts chewing up the sails or the anchor.’

      The Seagull sailed south along the forested coast for a league or so until Ox spotted a wide creek that emptied out into a small bay. Ham-Hand swung the tiller over hard and beached the ship on a sandy strip nearby. Then most of the crew went to work filling the water-casks while Ham-Hand led a small party back into the forest in search of game animals.

      The hunting party returned empty-handed along about sundown. ‘We seen some tracks, Cap’n,’ Ham-Hand reported, ‘and some pretty heavy-traveled game-trails, but we didn’t jump nothing worth wasting no arrows on.’

      ‘We can get by this evening, I expect,’ Sorgan told him. ‘The Fat Man put out some set lines right after we beached the Seagull, and he brought in some pretty good-sized fish.’

      ‘I ain’t all that fond of fish, Cap’n,’ Ham-Hand said.

      ‘It beats eating leaves and twigs,’ Sorgan said, shrugging. ‘Did you happen to run across any signs of people back there in the woods?’

      ‘Nothing I could swear to, Cap’n. Nobody’s been chopping down trees or building bridges or such. There might be folks hereabouts, but they ain’t left no sign. I don’t know as it’d be a good idea to leave the Seagull beached overnight. Might be better if we anchored a ways out – just to be safe. If there do happen to be folks living around here, maybe we should get to know a little about them afore we let down our guard. I sure don’t want to be the main course at no dinner party.’

      ‘Good point there,’ Sorgan agreed. ‘See to it.’

      The Seagull moved carefully southward along the coast for the next few days. The crew found game animals – wild cows and a very large variety of deer – but they didn’t encounter any people. That made the crew of the Seagull just a little edgy.

      ‘There’s got to be people here someplace, Cap’n,’ Ox said one afternoon about a week after they’d first made landfall.

      ‘Why?’ Hook-Beak said.

      ‘There’s always people, Cap’n – even along the coast of Shaan.’

      ‘Let’s hope they ain’t like the Shaans – if there are people here,’ Ham-Hand put in. ‘I could go for a long time without meeting folks who eats other folks.’

      ‘It might just be that we made landfall too far to the north,’ Sorgan said. ‘It’s still summer, so we don’t really know what winters here are like. It might just be that any people hereabouts live farther south.’

      The Seagull continued south along the empty coast, but an hour or so later Tree-Top called down from the top-mast. ‘Ho, Cap’n,’ he shouted. ‘There’s a village up ahead. I don’t see no people, but there’s smoke coming from some of the houses.’

      ‘You see, Ox,’ Sorgan said. ‘You worry too much.’ He looked up at the top-mast. ‘How far off is that place, Tree-Top?’ he shouted.

      ‘Just on t’other side of that sand-spit on ahead,’ Tree-Top called back. ‘I kin see some skiffs hauled up on the beach, but nobody’s any place near them.’

      ‘We must have scared them off,’ Hook-Beak said. ‘I think we might want to go in slow and easy. We don’t want to irritate anybody.’ He turned. ‘Ho, Rabbit!’ he called.

      ‘Aye Cap’n?’ the little man replied.

      ‘Go get that horn of yours and blow it a few times. There’s a village just ahead, and I’d like for the people there to know that we’re coming and that we’re peaceable.’

      ‘Aye, Cap’n,’ Rabbit said. He went below for a moment and emerged with a large, curled cow-horn. He put it to his lips and blew a long, mournful-sounding bleat that echoed back into the dark forest.

      Hook-Beak and the others listened intently, but there was no immediate reply.

      ‘Try again, Rabbit,’ Sorgan said. ‘See if you can make it sound a little more cheerful this time.’

      Rabbit blew a high-pitched note that ended with an off-key squeak.

      ‘I think maybe Rabbit should practice some,’ Ox said critically. ‘That one sounded like a cat who just got her tail stepped on.’

      Then from somewhere back in the forest there came an answering note that was quite a bit more mellow than Rabbit’s squeak.

      ‘Now we’re getting somewhere,’ Hook-Beak said. ‘Keep blowing, Rabbit,’ he instructed. ‘Try to make it sound a little friendly, if you can.’

      ‘I’m doing my best, Cap’n,’ Rabbit whined. ‘Nobody on board likes it when I practice tooting, so I’m sort of rusty.’

      The Seagull rounded the tip of the sand-spit, and the crew gathered near the bow to look at the village crouched at the head of a shallow inlet.

      ‘Not too fancy,’ Ox observed. ‘Mostly sticks chinked with grass.’

      ‘You weren’t expecting palaces, were you, Ox?’ Sorgan asked. ‘I’m just as happy not to see stone walls and such. We’re only one ship, so we don’t really want to find folks with all kinds of civilization to back them up. It looks to me like we might have found this place before the Trogites did. Tell the crew not to start waving swords and spears. We don’t want to make these folks nervous. Those woods are pretty close to the edge of that village, and I’d rather not sprout a dozen or so arrows while I’m trying to talk to the head-man of the village. Take the Seagull on into the bay, Ox, but we’ll drop anchor a little ways out from the beach. I’ll take the skiff and go a little bit closer and then stop. I expect the villagers’ll get my point. I want to talk, not to pick a fight.’

      Ox grunted and eased the Seagull into the inlet. When she was about a hundred yards from the beach, he ordered the crew to drop anchor, and several crew-men lowered Hook-Beak’s skiff.

      ‘I’ll stay within bow-shot,’ the captain said to Ox, ‘but tell the crew to keep their weapons out of sight – unless things start getting sticky.’ Then he climbed over the side and lowered himself into his skiff. He set his oars in place, rowed in a ways, then stopped and waited.

      Several people from the village came down to the beach, and they seemed to be holding some kind of discussion. Then a tall lean man with long blond braids and wearing leather clothing got into a kind of canoe, and the other villagers pushed the canoe into deeper water. Then the blond man paddled out to where Hook-Beak waited. He seemed to be very skilled at it. As he came closer and the men on the Seagull could see him more clearly, Sorgan felt a brief chill. This was obviously a man to be taken seriously. He was quite lean, and his face was hard. It was his eyes, however, that had so chilled the captain of the Seagull. There was a sort of determination there that Sorgan had seldom seen before. When this particular native wanted something, he would obviously go to any lengths to obtain it. Sorgan was fairly certain that it was time to tread very carefully.

      ‘What do you want?’ the stranger asked. He didn’t sound particularly belligerent, and Hook-Beak took that to be a good sign. He was just a bit surprised that