The Elder Gods (8 page)

“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 setlines 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.

“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 here, 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 topmast. “Ho, Cap’n!” he shouted. “There’s a village on up ahead. I don’t see no people about, but there’s smoke coming from some of the houses.”

“You see, Ox,” Sorgan said. “You worry too much.” He looked up at the topmast. “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 anyplace near them.”

“We must have scared them off,” Hook-Beak said. “I think we might want to go in sort of slow and easy. We don’t want to stir anybody up.” 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 a lot 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 mellower 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. 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 on in a little bit closer and then stop. I expect the villagers’ll get my point. I want to talk, not pick a fight.”

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

“I’ll stay within bowshot,” 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 and rowed on in a ways. Then he 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 quite obviously a man to be taken very 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 almost certainly go to any lengths to obtain it. Sorgan was fairly certain that it was time to walk 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 the other man spoke the language of the Maags. That should make things a lot easier. “We aren’t here to cause any trouble, friend,” he said. “We’re strangers in these parts, and we don’t know exactly where we are.”

“This is the Land of Dhrall,” the other man replied, “and this is the Domain of Zelana of the West. Does that answer your question?”

“I don’t believe I’ve ever heard of Dhrall before,” Sorgan said. “Of course, we’re a long way from home, and that might explain why. Is this Zelana your king, or something along those lines?”

“Not exactly. You’ll be meeting her before long, I expect. You’re Sorgan Hook-Beak, aren’t you?”

“How did you know that?” Sorgan was startled.

“Zelana of the West told us that you were coming. She said you wouldn’t really know much about Dhrall, so I’m supposed to answer any questions you might have.”

“How could she have possibly known that we were coming?” Sorgan demanded. “We certainly didn’t
intend
to wander off this far from the Land of Maag.”

“But a sea current caught you and brought you here. Wasn’t that what happened?”

“You seem to know a great deal about us, stranger, and I don’t even know your name yet.”

“I was just getting to that, Sorgan Hook-Beak,” the tall man said. “I am Longbow of the tribe of Old-Bear, and Zelana of the West instructed me to direct you to White-Braid, chief of the village and the tribe of Lattash. There are three tribes between here and Lattash, and they’ll build fires on the beach to guide you. You
can
count as far as three, can’t you?”

“Of course I can.” Sorgan was more than a little offended. “How is it that you came by the name ‘Longbow’?”

“I’m somewhat taller than the other men of Old-Bear’s tribe, so my bow’s longer.” He held up his bow to let Sorgan see it. He didn’t move it very fast; there was no arrow anywhere in sight, and he was not holding it as if he intended to use it. Both Longbow and Sorgan were being careful not to make any quick moves, since there were probably several dozen arrows pointed at them right now.

“Nicely crafted,” Sorgan said.

“It does what I want it to do,” Longbow said modestly. “It hasn’t yet missed at any range.”

Sorgan assumed that the blond man was boasting, but he sounded so sincere that Sorgan wasn’t entirely certain. “Just how far south is this Lattash place?” he asked.

“As far as a man can walk in ten days,” Longbow replied. “After you pass the fires on the beach, you’ll come to a narrow inlet that leads on into a fairly large bay. Lattash stands at the head of that bay, and Zelana awaits you at Lattash.”

Sorgan squinted at the water, making some calculations in his head. “I’m just guessing, but I’d say that the
Seagull
—that’s my ship over there— should make it in three days.”

“I wouldn’t take much longer, if I were you,” Longbow advised. “Zelana’s impatient, and you don’t want to irritate her. I’m supposed to ask you if the word
gold
has any meaning for you.”

“Oh, yes!”
Sorgan replied fervently.

“I wouldn’t know myself, but Zelana told me to say ‘gold’ to you. Have you enough food and water for three days? I don’t think Zelana will let you stop again on your way south.”

“How’s she going to stop me?”

“I don’t think you really want to know, Sorgan Hook-Beak. We’ll probably meet again, but for right now you’d better move along as quickly as you can. Things will go better if you do.”

3

D
id he have any weapons aside from that bow, Cap’n?” Ox asked when Sorgan returned to the
Seagull.

“He had a bundle of arrows and a spear in the bottom of the canoe,” Sorgan replied. “He didn’t touch it, but it was right out in the open where I could see it. I’m pretty sure he wanted me to know it was there. The funny thing about it was that the spear point wasn’t iron. It’d been made from stone instead.”

“The people who eat other people in the Land of Shaan make their tools and weapons out of stone, too,” Ox said. “That don’t make me feel none too comfortable, Cap’n. Just the idea of getting et makes me go cold all over.”

“I don’t think these people are that kind, Ox,” Sorgan said. “The fellow in the canoe seemed to be almost friendly. He knew my name, and he wanted to be sure we had enough food and water on board. There’s a place called Lattash about three days south of here, and there’s a woman named Zelana there who wants to talk with us. Longbow told me that there might be gold involved in the discussion. That sort of suggests that the Zelana woman wants to hire people who know how to fight, and she’ll pay good gold to get them.”

“I ain’t about to start taking no orders from no woman, Cap’n,” Ham-Hand protested.

“Don’t worry about it, Ham-Hand,” Sorgan told him. “You’ll take your orders from me, just like always.
I’ll
be the one who deals with this Zelana woman. Hoist up the sail, and let’s go south. There’s a lady down there who wants to talk to me about gold, so let’s not dawdle.”

Once the
Seagull
was clear of the inlet, a good following breeze came up, and Sorgan’s ship was soon skimming lightly over the waves a league or so out from the coast of Dhrall. By evening the
Seagull
was a goodly distance south of Longbow’s village, and Sorgan prudently hauled in on the leeward side of a small islet and dropped anchor. Nobody in his right mind sails through strange waters after dark.

Sorgan rose at first light and went up on deck to have a look at the weather. He found Ham-Hand and Rabbit leaning over the rail on the starboard side. “What’s afoot?” he asked them.

“There’s some real strange critters in these here waters, Cap’n,” Rabbit replied. “I’ve seen dolphins and porpoises afore, but I ain’t never seen any of them as was pink.”

“You’re not serious!” Sorgan said.

“Strike me dead iff’n I ain’t,” Rabbit said. “I heared them splashin’ an’ gigglin’ out there afore it got light, an’ I couldn’t believe my eyes once it got light enough for me to take a good look.”

“He’s right, Cap’n,” Ham-Hand said. “The little rascals is as pink as a new sunrise, and they’re skipping around out there on the water like little children having a good time.”

“There’s one right now, Cap’n,” Rabbit said, pointing off to starboard.

Sorgan stared. The creature was definitely a dolphin, and it really was pink.

Then there were others swarming around the
Seagull,
leaping and splashing and giggling as they frolicked about. “This is the strangest place,” Sorgan muttered, half to himself. “The next thing we know, we might come across purple sharks or bright green whales. Rouse the crew, Ham-Hand. The weather looks good, so let’s get under way.”

“Aye, Cap’n,” Ham-Hand replied.

The
Seagull
continued south, but she was no longer alone. The pink dolphins accompanied her, racing along ahead of her bow and chattering to the crew on both the starboard and port sides. “It’s almost like we got an escort, ain’t it, Cap’n?” Ox suggested. Then he squinted speculatively at the creatures playfully leaping out of the water on all sides. “I wonder what dolphin meat tastes like,” he said.

“No!” Sorgan said sharply. “Our luck’s running good, Ox. Don’t tamper with anything. You might bring down a squall or even a waterspout, and it’s a long swim back to Maag.”