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

‘Aye, Cap’n,’ Ox agreed. Then he raised his voice. ‘Oarsmen to your places!’ he
bellowed.

There was a bit of grumbling, but the burly oarsmen hauled in their fishing lines,
put away their dice, and went to their stations below the deck.

‘More sail!’ Ox shouted to the top-men aloft. Then he squinted forward. ‘I make it
to be about a league and a half, Cap’n,’ he said, ‘and no Trogite vessel afloat can
match the Seagull for speed when she’s under full sail and the oarsmen are earning
their keep. We should close on ‘em afore the sun goes down.’

‘We’ll see, Ox. We’ll see.’ Sorgan always enjoyed a good run anyway, and the
wallowing Trogite vessel gave him an excuse to stretch the Seagull out a bit. If
nothing else, an invigorating run might clear away the memories of that cursed
summer squall and the irritation that pesky fly on the ceiling of his cabin had caused
him. Hook-Beak was not particularly superstitious, but the prickly feeling of being
watched had made him edgy.

The Trogite vessel put on more sail, a clear indication that her crew had seen the
Seagull’s approach. But the broad-beamed merchant ship was no match for her long
and slender pursuer, so by late afternoon, the Seagull was closing fast. Then the
crewmen not otherwise occupied began to bring weapons up onto the main deck, and
they stood at the rail swinging their weapons and practicing their war-cries.

As usual, the Trogites abandoned ship at that point. It was so much ‘as usual’ that
it was almost a ritual. The Seagull paused briefly to give the Trogite seamen time
enough to bail over the side and to swim out from between the two ships. Then the
Maags tied up alongside and stole everything of value, then they carried their loot
back aboard the Seagull and pulled away so that the Trogites could climb back aboard
their ship before anybody drowned. It was a civilized sort of arrangement. Nobody
got hurt, no damage was done to either vessel, and they all parted almost friends.
Hook-Beak smiled faintly. During the previous summer, he’d robbed one Trogite
vessel so many times that he’d gotten to know her captain by his first name.

‘Should we burn her, Cap’n?’ Ox asked hopefully. Ox always seemed to enjoy
burning ships, for some reason.

‘I don’t think so,’ Hook-Beak replied. ‘Let them have their ship back. We’ve got
what we wanted. Maybe if we don’t burn her, they’ll go back to Shaan and reload.
Then we can chase them down and rob them again.’

After the Maags had left the Trogite vessel far behind, the Seagull was quartering
the wind and moving off to the southeast - and that was when coincidence stepped in
to alter the ‘as usual’ part of the whole affair. Every seaman alive knows that there are
rivers in the sea, but unlike land rivers, the rivers of the sea are largely invisible.
Water is water, after all, and the surface of the sea looks much the same, whether it’s
simply lying there or running fast just below the waves.

The Seagull was placidly moving southeast, and the crew was busily sorting
through the loot when there was a sudden surge, and the Seagull was abruptly swept