"David Eddings - The Dreamers 01 - The Elder gods" - читать интересную книгу автора (Eddings David)

The ship that seemed to be of great interest to the Maags was larger
than the Seagull, and it seemed to be wide and slow. The man-things on
that ship were clothed mostly in cloth, and there seemed to be more of
them than there were on the Seagull.
Then, much to Zelana’s surprise, the man-things on the other ship all
jumped into Mother Sea and tried to swim away as fast as they could.
The Maags quickly tied the Seagull to the side of the other ship and
began to carry all sorts of things across to their floating home. When they
had finished, they cut the ropes that bound the two ships togther.
‘Should we burn her, Cap’n?’ Ox asked Hook-Beak hopefully.
‘I don’t think so,’ Sorgan replied. ‘Let the Trogites have their ship
back. We’ve got what we wanted. Maybe they’ll go back and fill her up
once more. Then we can chase them down and rob them again.’
Zelana considered some options at that point. The Maags of the
Seagull had spoken of a number of times when they’d attacked various
coastal settlements, so it appeared that they knew how to fight on the
ground as well as out on the face of Mother Sea. They also seemed to be
in the habit of bragging about their various adventures. If a sudden sea-
current ‘just happened’ to carry the Seagull to the Land of Dhrall, and the
crew also ‘happened’ to come across a great deal of gold and then went
home to brag about their good fortune, it wouldn’t be long before
hundreds of Maag ships would descend on the coast of Dhrall. Once they
were there, a bit of manipulation would be all it should take to get them to
attack the forces of the Vlagh. The word ‘gold’ did seem to get the
immediate attention of the Maags.
Zelana sent her thought out to Mother Sea and made a brief suggestion.
Mother Sea thought it might be sort of amusing.
Not long afterward, the Seagull was placidly quartering the wind and
moving in a generally southeasterly direction. Then a sudden swirling
turbulence caught the ship and swept it sideways toward the east. Hook-
Beak, Ox, and Ham-Hand started bellowing conflicting orders, and their
underlings tried to do several different things all at the same time, but
nothing they tried - and probably nothing they could have tried - made the
slightest bit of difference. The Seagull continued to move easterly,
sometimes sideways, sometimes front first, and sometimes backward.
Mother Sea’s grip was very, very firm.
Zelana rode the wind high above and watched with a certain
satisfaction as the Seagull moved inexorably toward the Land of Dhrall.
Whether they liked it or not, Hook-Beak and his crew had just joined the
forces of good in the eternal struggle with the evil of the Vlagh.
 THE SEAFARERS




1



Though he would deny it with his dying breath, if the truth were to be