The Elder Gods by David Eddings, Leigh Eddings Page A

legendary Dalto Big-Nose, a man whose very name struck terror into the heart of every Trogite sea captain who sailed the northern sea.
    Now, the Trogites are an avaricious race, eager to snatch things that rightfully belong to others but which they haven’t gotten around to discovering yet. At some time in the remote past a Trogite explorer in search of deposits of tin or copper which might prove profitable had discovered a peculiar region far back in the western reaches of the Land of Shaan, which stands to the west of the Land of Maag. The Maags grudgingly conceded that the Trogite explorer was a courageous fellow, since the natives of the Land of Shaan felt a moral compulsion to eat everything—or everybody—they killed. Being killed is one thing, but being eaten is quite another.
    The Trogite explorer purchased the friendship of the savages of Shaan with a few worthless trinkets, and they had led him to that region where the rivers had sandy bottoms. Many rivers have sandy bottoms, but the sand in the rivers of interior Shaan is comprised mostly of flecks of pure gold. Word about the gold in the rivers of Shaan soon got out, and adventurers from all over the known world rushed there to claim their rightful share. After a few seasons, though, the word got out that adventurers who went to the Land of Shaan never came back.
    The enthusiasm dropped off noticeably.
    The source of the Trogite gold was well known, but the perils involved in seeking it were even better known. Gold, however, isn’t really worth very much unless the owner can take it someplace where he can spend it. The Trogites came up with a quick solution to that problem. They started building ships to carry their wealth back to the Land of Trog. They were large ships, wide of beam and deep of hull, and they tended to wallow rather than sail. Maag vessels were narrow and swift. Moreover, the wealthy Trogites tended to be miserly, so they neglected to hire warriors to guard their treasure ships.
    The Maags more or less abandoned fishing at that point. The Trogites winnowed gold from the rivers of Shaan, hauled it down to the coast, and put it aboard their wallowing treasure ships. Then the treasure ships sailed out to the northern sea, where the Maags waited for them.
    Sorgan Hook-Beak had received an extensive education from Captain Big-Nose in the fine art of relieving Trogite treasure ships of all that excess weight. As a young man he’d squandered away his earnings in revelry, naturally. Young sailors are enthusiastic revelers, but after a few seasons, Sorgan realized that the captain’s share of the ship’s earnings was much, much larger than the share of an ordinary seaman, so he began to religiously set aside half of all his earnings, and he had soon saved enough to be able to buy his own ship, the
Seagull.
    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