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

‘Aye,’ Rabbit replied sullenly.
‘He spends a lot of his time complaining, don’t he?’ Ham-Hand
observed.
‘He runs fast, though,’ Ox replied. ‘He’s sort of timid, that’s all. He’s
got a real wide streak of cautious that runs down his back, but if you lean
on him some, he’ll do like you tell him -sooner or later.’
Captain Hook-Beak came forward immediately and he had a relieved
look on his face. ‘Has anybody happened to see any towns on that
coast?’ he asked.
‘None so far, Cap’n,’ Ox replied. ‘If we want anything to eat, we’ll
probably have to chase it down without no help.’
‘Better find a river or a creek first,’ Hook-Beak decided. ‘Let’s get the
water-casks filled before we go hunting. Hungry’s bad, but thirsty’s
worse.’
‘Not by very much,’ Ox said. ‘If my belly starts growling any louder,
the people here abouts will probably think there’s a thunderstorm coming
their way.’
‘Would you look at the 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