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

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.’