The Elder Gods (7 page)

The
Seagull
was not really in very good shape when Sorgan bought her from the crusty old pirate he’d happened to meet in a seaside tavern in the Maag port of Weros. Her sails were ragged, and she leaked quite noticeably. She was about the best Sorgan could afford at that time, though. Had the old man who owned her been completely sober during their negotiations, he’d probably have held out for more money, but his purse had just come up empty, and Sorgan had shrewdly delayed making his final offer until the poor old fellow’s tongue had been hanging out. He also shook his purse frequently while they were haggling, pretending that it was nothing more than an absentminded habit.

The musical jingle of money played no small part in the tipsy old man’s acceptance of Sorgan’s final offer.

After he’d bought the
Seagull,
Sorgan had persuaded two of his former shipmates, Ox and Kryda Ham-Hand, to join him as first and second mates. Their rank hadn’t really meant all that much just then, though. What Sorgan had really needed at that point in time had been their help in making the
Seagull
more seaworthy.

It had taken the three of them more than a year to finish the repairs, largely because they’d frequently run out of money. Whenever that had happened, they’d had to suspend operations and take to the streets near the waterfront in search of drunk sailors whose purses still had a few coins left in them.

Eventually, the
Seagull
had been marginally restored, and then the three had been obliged to haunt the waterfront again to find a crew.

The
Seagull
was a full-sized Maag longship, a hundred and ten feet long and twenty-five feet wide at the beam, so she needed a full-sized crew. Sorgan had done his best to keep the size of his crew down to a minimum, but eighty men had been about as low as he could go. He’d given a bit of thought to reducing the number of oarsmen, but Ox and Ham-Hand had protested violently, pointing out that fewer oarsmen would mean slower speed, and a faster ship would bring in more money.

And so it was that now the
Seagull
roamed the waters of the northern sea, looking for targets of opportunity.

It was about midsummer of an otherwise unimportant year when the
Seagull
encountered one of those summer squalls that seldom last very long—two days, perhaps, no more than three. This one lingered longer, however, and the
Seagull
’s crew endured bad weather for almost a week, helplessly watching as the howling gale tore away the rigging and ripped the sail to shreds.

When the gale moved off, the
Seagull
’s crew labored long and hard to make her even marginally seaworthy again.

Captain Hook-Beak took it in stride. No ship ever sails on a perpetually sunny sea, so bad weather was simply something that had to be endured. Of course, the captain of a ship is seldom required to repair the rigging or patch the sail. Those chores are the duties of ordinary seamen, so Captain Hook-Beak retired to his cabin to catch up on his sleep.

It didn’t quite turn out that way, though. Despite the fact that the
Seagull
was many leagues from land, a pesky fly had somehow found its way into Hook-Beak’s cabin, and the buzzing sound of its wings was just enough to keep the captain awake. The times when it was not flying were even worse. He could actually feel its eyes on him, watching his every move, and that was much worse than the brainless buzzing. Try though he might, Sorgan Hook-Beak couldn’t sleep.

Nothing at all seemed to be going right this season.

After her rigging and sail had been repaired, the
Seagull
got under way again, and she was running before the wind some distance out from the coast of Maag when Ox spotted a Trogite merchant vessel hull-down on the horizon. “Sail ho, Cap’n!” he roared in a voice that might well have shattered glass a league away.

“Where away?” Hook-Beak demanded.

“Two points off the starboard bow, Cap’n!” Ox shouted.

Hook-Beak relinquished the tiller to Kryda Ham-Hand and hurried forward to join Ox in the bow. “Show me,” he told his burly first mate.

Ox pointed.

“Goodly distance,” Hook-Beak said dubiously.

“The oarsmen are getting fat anyway, Cap’n,” Ox replied. “A good run might sweat some of the lard off ’em, even if we don’t catch that ship.”

“You’ve got a point there, Ox,” Sorgan agreed. “All right, let’s take a run at that ship and see if we can catch her. She looks to be Trogite, so it’ll be worth the trouble.”

“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 of that pesky fly on the ceiling of his cabin. Hook-Beak was not particularly superstitious, but the prickly feeling of being watched had made him very 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 like a ritual. The
Seagull
paused briefly to give the Trogite seamen time enough to bail over the side and 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 wanted to burn the Trogite 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 fill her back up. 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 just 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 sideways toward the northeast. First Mate Ox fought with the tiller, bending it almost to the breaking point. “We’re in trouble, Cap’n!” he shouted. “A current just grabbed us!”

“Oarsmen to your posts!” Hook-Beak shouted even as Ham-Hand started bellowing, “Slack sail!”

There was a great deal of scrambling about, but nothing seemed to have any effect. “It’s no good, Cap’n!” Ox cried. “It’s got us, and it won’t let go. The tiller’s gone slack!”

“Maybe it’ll slow down when the tide changes,” Ham-Hand suggested hopefully.

“I wouldn’t make no big wagers on it,” Ox replied, working the tiller back and forth to get the feel of the current. “This one’s moving faster than any current I’ve ever come up against. I don’t think the tide’s got much to do with it. The seasons might, but it’s a long time till autumn, and we could end up a thousand leagues from home afore winter gets here.”

“We’re making purty good time, though,” Ham-Hand noted.

“Are you trying to be funny?” Ox demanded angrily.

“I just thought I’d mention it,” Ham-Hand replied. “You want I should tell the oarsmen to stand down, Cap’n?”

“No. Have them swing her so that she’s going bow-first. If she keeps going sideways like this, a good ripple could swamp her. Then have the oarsmen ship their oars, but keep them in place. If we swirl in behind an island or a reef, I’ll want them to dig in and pull us clear.”

“Aye, Cap’n, if that’s the way you want it,” Ham-Hand replied, tugging his forelock in a salute of sorts.

It didn’t happen that way, though. The
Seagull
continued to rush in a northeasterly direction for the next several days, moving farther and farther into unknown waters. The crew was growing more apprehensive as the days slid past. They’d been out of sight of land for more than two weeks now, and some tired old stories involving sea monsters, the edge of the world, demons, and vast whirlpools began to surface. Ox and Ham-Hand tried to stifle those stories, but they weren’t very successful.

Then on one bright summer afternoon, the current slowed without any warning, and then it stopped, leaving the
Seagull
placidly sitting on a flat, empty sea.

“What’s our plan, Cap’n?” Ham-Hand asked.

“I’m working on it,” Sorgan replied. “Don’t rush me.” He looked at Ox. “How much water have we got left?” he demanded.

“Maybe a week’s worth—if we ration it.”

“How about food?”

“It’s a little skimpy, Cap’n,” Ox reported. “The Fat Man’s been complaining about that for a couple of days now. The Fat Man’s not the best cook in the world, but he does know how to pad up the beans and salt pork with seaweed if things get tight. I’d say that water’s our main problem.”

“Maybe it’ll rain,” Ham-Hand said hopefully.

“ ‘Maybe’ don’t drink too good,” Ox said in a gloomy voice. “We’d better find some land, and we’d better find it fast; otherwise . . .” He left it up in the air, but the others got his drift.

2

T
he crew of the
Seagull
was on short rations for the next few days, but then, on a steel grey morning before the sun rose, Kaldo Tree-Top, the tallest man aboard, shouted, “Land ho!” from the topmast. A shorter man might have missed the low-lying smudge on the eastern horizon, but Tree-Top, well-nigh seven feet tall, saw it quite clearly.

“Are you sure?” Ham-Hand shouted up to the gangly lookout.

“Real sure,” Tree-Top called back. “Two points off the port bow, and three, maybe four leagues away.”

“Go wake Ox,” Ham-Hand told Rabbit, the small, wiry crewman standing nearby.

“He don’t like to get woke up this early,” Rabbit replied. “It makes him real grouchy.”

“Just kick his foot and then run,” Ham-Hand suggested. “He’ll never catch you. That’s how you got your name, isn’t it?”

“I can outrun my own shadow,” Rabbit boasted, “but if I happen to trip and fall, old Ox’ll tromp on me for the rest of the day.”

“Shinny up the mast,” Ham-Hand advised. “Ox don’t climb none too good. I need to let him know that we’re about to make a landfall.”

“I’d really druther not, Ham-Hand.”

Ham-Hand clenched his huge fist and held it in front of Rabbit’s nose. “I’d do a quick turnabout on my druthers if I was you, Rabbit,” he said ominously. “Now, quit complaining and do as you’re told.”

“Don’t get excited,” Rabbit said, backing away. “I’m going.”

Ox, however, surprised Rabbit with a sudden burst of enthusiasm. Of course, Ox required a great deal of food and drink because of his size, so an unexpected landfall brightened his entire day.

The
Seagull
was at least as fast as her namesake, and by the time the sun came up, the coast ahead was clearly visible. “Go tell the cap’n that we’ve made a landfall, Rabbit,” Ox commanded.

“Why me?” Rabbit whined.

“Because I said so. Don’t stand around and argue with me, Rabbit. Just go.”

“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 with 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 hereabouts 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 just a bit overgrown, don’t they?” Ox agreed.

“A
bit?
” Ham-Hand said. “You could carve two
Seagull
s out of one of them trees and still have enough wood left over to cook breakfast.”