The Battle of Riptide (3 page)

IT WAS A WARM NIGHT WITH GENTLE TIDES AS Gray waited for Barkley to get back. His friend was patrolling again, keeping a sharp eye on both Goblin and Razor Shivers. The exhausted and hungry dogfish finally returned to Rogue's three-level landshark wreck after the moon rose, its glow casting the swaying greenie field around the wreck in an eerie half-light.

Shell, the bull shark, was nice enough to catch an extra, very fat tunny and save it for Barkley. “This is delicious,” the dogfish said between ravenous bites. “I don't know how I missed every fish in the ocean on my way back, but I saw nothing but a couple of wrasse.” Wrasse were colorful and smart fish—not like the dumb fish Gray and Barkley were taught to hunt when they were growing up in the Caribbi Sea. Gray had heard wrasse weren't very tasty, anyway.

The rest of the Line in Rogue Shiver—Mari, Striiker, and Snork, in addition to Shell—also hovered in the lichen-covered lower level of the ancient sunken ship. “Yeah, you being such a great hunter, it's practically impossible for you
not
to catch a fish whenever you want,” Striiker said, bumping Barkley with his pointy great white snout. In the old days there would have been a sting to his words, but now Striiker gave Barkley a good-natured toothy grin.

“Aww, that's not nice,” said Snork, waving his long serrated bill with a frown.

“I was only kidding,” Striiker explained. “Did everyone get that I was kidding?”

“I got it, I got it,” said Barkley. “Good one. I know I'm not the best hunter, but this was different. Never seen anything like it. It was like something chased every fish in the Atlantis away.” The dogfish turned to Striiker with a grin. “But we know that since you weren't there, the fish didn't run away from your ugly krillface, so it must have been something else!” Barkley gave the great white a confident tail slap.

Gray marveled at the change in his friend since they first swam into the Big Blue as scared pups. Barkley had followed him out of loyalty and friendship after Gray had been banished from Coral Shiver. They'd gone through some tough times. At one point, they were so angry with each other they didn't speak at all. But even when they were fighting, Barkley could always be counted on.

One of the small things Gray appreciated was that Barkley had insisted on being fifth in his Line. After their victory over Goblin at the Tuna Run, Rogue Shiver had made Gray their leader. He'd appointed Striiker as his first but wanted Barkley to be second. “A tiny dogfish as your second?” Barkley had said sarcastically. “Are you out of your jelly-brained mind? Do you want to get Rogue Shiver laughed out of the Big Blue?”

Gray grinned at the memory as he tapped his tail against the side of the landshark boat, making an impatient thumping noise. Mari shook her head. “Why don't you just tell him?”

“He's eating,” Gray said. “Don't want to interrupt.”

“Tell me what?” asked the dogfish, his mouth full.

“Trank gave me some interesting information—”

“Awww, Gray. Not the stonefish again.” Barkley gnashed his teeth as if he had tasted a bitter mackerel. He didn't like anyone from Slaggernacks, but especially not Trank.

“Wait, listen,” Gray told him. “Trank said he heard about a sea dragon who tells wild stories about his huge cousins in the Dark Blue.”

“Yappy!” exclaimed Barkley.

“Do
you
think there might be more than one Yappy?” Gray asked.

Barkley shook his head. “No way. Who would have thought his nonstop talking would actually work in our favor?” He flicked his fins up and down in excitement. “So, go on. Where are they? Is everyone okay?”

“Well, that was kind of it,” Gray replied.

“What do you mean, ‘kind of it'?” asked Shell. “Didn't that muck-sucking stonefish actually
find
this sea dragon for you?”

Striiker joined in. “Seems like with all the fish you've been bringing to Slaggernacks, they might actually do some work.” The great white churned his tail so hard it caused loose greenie to fly everywhere. He didn't like Trank much, either.

“Trank did try and find him,” Mari told everyone. She swished her shapely thresher tail in a figure eight, signaling everyone to calm themselves. “But Yappy wasn't there. Neither was anyone else from Coral Shiver.”

“So they've moved on,” Striiker said, nodding to himself. “Smart.”

“Could be,” Gray answered the great white. “Or maybe not!” He flexed his tail, full of nervous energy.

Barkley looked at him. “Why are you so happy?”

“Because Coral Shiver was always good at hiding.”

“You think they're still around?” Barkley got a little more excited when Gray smiled. “You think they're still around! Somewhere between here and our old reef! Of course! Close enough where it feels like home, but far enough to get lost!”

“So?” asked Shell. “So what? Does anyone else get this?”

“The thing you don't understand is that
nothing
can stop Yappy from talking,” Gray said as Barkley nodded in agreement. “If they were just moving from place to place like drifters, we would've picked up their trail.”

“How do you know they didn't just leave the area entirely?” Shell asked. The big bull shark rubbed his rough hide on one of the broken beams of the landshark ship, clouding the water with a mist of tiny wood particles.

Striiker sneezed and glared. “How many times have I told you not to do that?”

“But my flank itches!”

Gray slapped the great white with his tail, stopping the argument before it began. “Coral Shiver wouldn't have gone off to the Sific or someplace on the other side of the Big Blue.”

“How do you know that?” asked Striiker. “We were ready to go to the Sific to hide from Goblin.”

Mari swirled her long tail as she did when thinking intently. “But we didn't. Once sharks find a place that feels like homewaters, we do like to stay there.”

“That's true!” said Snork. “I don't want to leave here because I like it!”

“Look, I know you think you're good at sneaking around—” Striiker began, but Barkley cut him off.

“I
am
good at sneaking around,” the dogfish said. “But I know what you're worried about. We'd have to skirt the edge of Goblin's patrols and go through part of Razor Shiver's territory. But it's not like I haven't done it before, you know, like just before I got back tonight.”

“But you weren't leading Gray,” Shell commented. This did quiet Barkley as it was true. It was also the main reason why Gray didn't go searching for his mother and Coral Shiver in the open waters with his friend. Gray was too large not to be noticed on a long swim. But this time he wouldn't stay behind.

“I'm not sticking my snout in the sand and going turtle while you swim into danger,” Gray said, smacking his tail against the hull of the landshark boat with a BOOM! “I'm coming with you and that's that.”

Barkley gave Gray a little snout bump and asked, “So when do we leave, big fin?”

The answer turned out to be immediately. Gray wanted to wait until Barkley got some rest, but the dogfish wouldn't hear of it. The journey from the North Atlantis to the edge of the Caribbi Sea took nearly two days. Not because it was that far, but because Barkley insisted he lead the way and swam so
slooowly
it was unbelievable. He knew the patrol routes of Goblin Shiver by heart. That was the easy part. It was after that, when they got to Razor Shiver territory, where things really slowed down. The dogfish took Gray through thick green-greenie and tight lava canyons whenever he could.

“Sharkkind hate swimming through areas like this,” Barkley whispered while heading into yet another field of thick-beyond-belief blue-greenie.

“Add me to the list because I hate it, too,” Gray answered quietly. It was awful. This type of greenie felt like it would catch in his gills or wrap around his tail and send him to the Sparkle Blue. There were stories of haunted greenie that would reach out and snare you if you weren't careful. If a shark couldn't swim, he couldn't breathe. This wasn't that type of greenie, though. It was, however, a kind that tickled Gray's snout unmercifully.

The dogfish seemed to have no trouble whatsoever moving through it, which made Gray simultaneously proud of his friend and annoyed with himself. But he was four times Barkley's size, and that probably had something to do with his own lack of stealth.

“Move a little slower,” Barkley suggested. “You're . . . causing the greenie to sway, umm, more noticeably than the tide moves it naturally.”

“Just say I'm fat,” Gray told him, whispering a little louder.

“Hey, I didn't—”

“I can tell you're thinking it!” Gray shot back.

Barkley motioned at him with a fin. “Maybe you're
supposed
to be fat!”

Gray was caught by surprise. Could that be true? Was he supposed to be fat? Barkley knew he was a mega-lodon, though neither talked about it for fear of someone, even a dweller, overhearing. He shook his head at Barkley. “Nope. I'm just big cartilaged. And you better not share your theory on my fatness with Striiker or anyone else from Rogue, or I'll—”

“
Shhh
!” Barkley hissed, making a chopping motion with his fin.

Gray immediately quieted and strained to listen. He heard the tide moving the greenie all around him, a few shellbacks scuttling in the sand below, and smaller fish swimming by. Nothing large was in the immediate vicinity of Gray's sharp senses. And thankfully, there weren't the telltale chopping tail strokes of a bull from Razor Shiver speeding up to attack.

But farther away . . . there was something. Gray could smell the drifting scent of a group of sharkkind. It was too distant to identify what type of sharks, but there was a large gathering somewhere. Gray's nose tingled as he focused on the scents in the water; fear, anger, and excitement. It was like a growing storm. Barkley sensed the same and began picking a path leading away from whatever was going on. Gray stopped him. “Maybe it's Coral Shiver.”

“Much more likely it's Razor Shiver.” That was true. They were near Razor's homewaters. If there were more than ten sharks in one place, they would probably be shiver sharks.

“Barkley, we have to see. For my mom—and your cousins. We have to be sure they're not in danger.”

The dogfish nodded and led them slowly through the greenie and toward a low rock formation where they would be able to see upward while remaining hidden themselves. Gray followed, letting Barkley find their way. The dogfish really was very good at stalking around unseen.

Gray copied the way Barkley moved, alternately shimmying or drifting depending on the current. He found that by doing this he caused less disturbance in the greenie and moved more silently. He was about to compliment Barkley when suddenly the dogfish's tail jerked as if he'd been shocked by an eel. “Back, back, back,” his friend whispered urgently.

Gray lowered himself onto the seabed, trying to become a part of it. “What did you see?”

“Razor Shiver.”

“How many?” asked Gray.

“All of them, I think.”

Gray's heart thudded in his chest as he looked upward, the sun shining dimly into the ocean from its place high above the chop-chop. There they were! Razor Shiver! He could see their outlines clearly. At least a hundred bull sharks. More, even! They were arranged in loose rows, hovering at the ready.

“What are they doing?” Barkley whispered.

“That's a battle formation,” Gray told him quietly. “But the better question is, ‘Who are those sharks they're about to fight?'” Gray pointed a fin across the waters to more than four hundred sharkkind lined up against Razor Shiver.

“
Whoa
,” Barkley breathed in a raspy whisper.

“PLEASE DON'T LET MY MOM AND CORAL SHIVER be a part of this!” Gray thought as his stomach heaved. The sharkkind facing Razor Shiver weren't just a shiver—they were a
battle
shiver! Goblin had told Gray those didn't even exist anymore. The strange mariners had markings on their flanks that didn't look natural. They were tattoos! That meant these sharkkind were Indi Shiver!

What were they doing so far from their home-waters? Here they were, perfectly ordered and facing off with Razor Shiver. They hovered motionlessly in the strong current as Razor and his shiver sharks struggled to maintain their own formation. Thankfully, Gray saw no one from Coral Shiver. His concentration was so complete he didn't hear Barkley until his friend brushed against him.

“Sink and hide!” the dogfish whispered urgently. It was then Gray noticed
another
group of sharkkind. These were in no hurry at all and glided on the lazy current. This wasn't a battle formation as these hundred or so sharks were definitely not ready for a fight.

They were here to
watch
.

Gray took a moment to figure out that these sharks were a royal court, like the ones he'd heard stories about in Miss Lamprey's class in school. While the sharks in the Indi battle shiver all had the same tattoo—a series of never-ending black waves running down each flank—these sharkkind's markings were different and much more intricate.

The young tiger shark leader was the most decorated of all. His tattoos were thin lines forming whirls and swirls, like stormy ocean waters. These covered the white of his belly and the underside of his fins along with most of his flanks. Gray thought the marks looked kind of ugly, even though they were colorful. The sleek tiger shark had a wild look in his eyes and lounged on top of a blue whale, which acted as kind of a mobile throne. Gray looked around and saw there were actually multiple whales, each with a Speakers Rock somehow pressed in its back. When one whale needed to swim to the surface to breathe, another smoothly slipped in, so the royal fish didn't have to flick a fin. Usually a Speakers Rock would be located in a shiver's homewaters, so it was odd. Did Indi Shiver think they had a right to all the water in the Big Blue?

The current flowed just so, and Gray could hear the tiger shark leader perfectly as he giggled a high-pitched titter. “I'll bet my new herald gets eaten! Anyone want to wager the seasoned head of their first in the Line he gets eaten?” Gray's stomach involuntarily clenched in horror. Was the wild-eyed leader joking?

“What do you think, Tydal?” the royal asked, showing off the tattooed underside of his fins.

A brightly colored brown-and-yellow epaulette shark answered. “King Finnivus, this lowly court shark would never presume to know!”

So the leader was a king and his name was Finnivus. Gray wasn't impressed. He would have been far more interested to meet Tydal, the epaulette shark, because his bright brown-and-yellow markings were fascinating.

“Watch this! Watch what happens!” yelled King Finnivus, his tail swishing with a weird, stuttering excitement. The herald was saying something to Razor. After a moment, Razor's eyes widened in surprise, then anger. He roared and took the herald's dorsal fin with one clean bite.

Finnivus cackled from the back of the blue whale. “Looks like I'm going to need a new herald! Again!”

“Yes, Your Magnificence!” answered Tydal, the court shark. “I'll see to it at once!”

“Mariner Prime, have my armada attack!” Finnivus told a battle-scarred tiger shark, who was hovering by an odd device containing lantern fish. The lantern fish inside were kept perfectly still by a metallic grate holding them gently in place. If Gray had to guess, this device was something made by landsharks. The lantern fish flashed a series of colored patterns. Once they were done flashing, the entire armada attacked. Gray marveled. Indi Shiver was using the lantern fish as a signaling device!

There was loud yelling by the bulls of Razor Shiver. Gray recognized this for what it was: fear. The attackers didn't waste valuable energy yelling, and this made their silent, whooshing charge all the more terrifying. Next to the discipline of Indi's battle shiver, Razor's mariners were about as dangerous as a drove of tuna. And their fates would be similar.

The attackers charged toward the already disorganized resistance. Gray could see that most of the younger sharks in Razor Shiver weren't holding their place in formation—some even bolted the opposite way, swimming into their shivermates and causing confusion.

Gray looked over at Indi Shiver's commander, who was signaling to the armada with the lantern fish device. His five-layer formation broke off into three columns that twisted and turned like sea snakes. The first column was made of heavy sharkkind to batter the enemy: great whites, tigers, and, of course, hammerheads. They swam in snout to snout, mauling the defenders.

The second-battle fin was organized for endurance; threshers and bull sharks would feint an attack, but then draw back. Being the best swimmers, they wouldn't tire easily. When they did attack, it was usually from behind as they possessed the strength to swim around the entire battle waters and still make a concentrated strike. The third-battle fin included the fastest sharkkind: blues, spinners, and makos. When they joined the battle, they widened the cracks in the Razor Shiver's defensive formation caused by the other two battle fins.

After only a few fin flicks, there was blood everywhere. Razor Shiver's formation was compacted into a tight ball, useless for either defense or offense. It was a slaughter. Then two Indi Shiver sharks—a blue shark and a mako—struck at Razor himself, one mauling his dorsal, the other taking his right fin.

Razor was finished!

Gray couldn't believe it. All this time, Goblin could never beat Razor, and now Razor was swimming the Sparkle Blue just like that! His large shiver, one that Gray and all of Rogue Shiver constantly feared being discovered by, had been destroyed in less time than it took to eat a bluefin tuna!

The armada ceased its attack and circled what was left of the terrified Razor Shiver. “Whalem, destroy them to the last!” King Finnivus yelled.

“My king, their leader is dead,” the mariner prime said. “These remaining bulls could become valuable additions to your armada with proper training.”

“They are a disorganized mess!” Finnivus screeched. “Kill them all!”

“King Finnivus, your father would offer mercy.”

For a moment, it seemed as if even the noise of the injured and terrified bulls from Razor Shiver subsided. The sharks in the royal court held their breath. Apparently, questioning the cruel king's orders was not done.

Finnivus smiled, showing his notched and pointed tiger shark teeth. “Of course, you're right!” he exclaimed. “My father put you in charge of the armada those many years ago because of your experience, so I should listen to what you think!”

The commander was wise enough to say nothing as Finnivus went on with his mocking praise. “Who am I to disagree with your considerable age, Whalem? Mercy for those who stop fighting, but any who flee must die! Now, forward! I need my rest. Conquering the Big Blue is very tiring!”

And so King Finnivus and his court swam into the heart of Razor Shiver territory and made themselves at home.