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

‘Shinny up the mast, Ham-Hand,’ he told his second mate. ‘See if you
can spot that village, and then find us a place to anchor for the night.
We’ll sit tight until morning, and then we’ll go talk with the rich lady.’
 ‘Aye, Cap’n,’ Ham-Hand agreed. ‘Let’s not rile up the natives if we
don’t have to.’


They anchored the Seagull off a rocky shore where there was no
discernable beach. Hook-Beak didn’t want anybody to come creeping up
to his ship in the dark. He stationed look-outs aloft and others in the bow
and on the stern, just to be on the safe side.
The night passed quietly, and everything seemed to be all right the next
morning. The look-outs had seen several fires near the broad, sandy
beach at the head of the bay during the night, and Sorgan called the crew
of the Seagull to the aft deck for a little conference. ‘I want you men to
mind your manners when we go into that village,’ he told them. ‘Don’t
start getting any ideas about their women-folk or trying to grab any
trinkets from the men. We’re probably going to be outnumbered by about
ten to one, so let’s all be real polite. These people seem to need some help
from us, and there’s been talk of gold as payment, so behave yourselves.
Don’t start waving your swords and spears around, and don’t snarl or
shake your fists at anybody. We could be talking about a lot of gold here,
and I’ll be very unhappy with anybody who does anything to upset the
apple-cart. Have I made myself clear?’ He looked around at his crew with
bleak eyes and an even more grim expression.
They all seemed to get his point almost immediately.
They raised anchor as the sun was just coming up, and the oarsmen
slowly rowed the Seagull up to the head of the bay where the nighttime
lookouts had seen the fires.
‘Take her in until we’re about a hundred yards from shore, Ox,’ Sorgan
instructed. ‘We’ll drop anchor and wait to see how the natives behave. If
they seem peaceful, fine. If they act belligerent, we’ll turn the Seagull
around and go someplace else.’
‘I get your drift, Cap’n,’ Ox agreed.
Sorgan noted that the village of Lattash was quite a bit larger than the
one where he’d met Longbow, and there were many canoes on the sandy
beach, and fish-nets drying on poles near the canoes. It appeared that the
natives of Lattash were primarily fishermen. The houses, if they could be
called that, were made for the most part of tree-branches tightly woven
about dome-shaped frames, and though they appeared to be a bit crude,
Hook-Beak was fairly sure that they kept the weather at bay. There was
nothing in the village that could really be called a street, since the
individual huts appeared to have been randomly placed.
There was also a well-packed ridge - or berm - between the village and
the river which came down out of the mountains just there, and that
strongly hinted at the possibility that the river sometimes overflowed its
banks.
It wasn’t long before a dozen or so canoes were paddled out from the
beach by leather-clad natives. Sorgan noted that they were all fairly well-
armed. Their arrows and spears had stone points, but a well-sharpened