The Battle of Riptide (4 page)

A LITTLE BLOOD IN THE WATER WOULD NORMALLY sharpen a shark's appetite.

Not today, though.

Gray wanted to throw up. He gaped at the carnage, never having seen anything like it. Torn bull sharks from Razor Shiver littered the ocean floor. A few dying, finless torsos even crashed into the greenie field he and Barkley were hiding in. These sharks didn't need to be mauled further and were allowed to drift from the fight. Their piteous wails were unnerving but there was nothing to be done. If you lost a fin, the only place you'd swim was the Sparkle Blue.

Gray was cold inside. He waggled his fins just to feel himself move. Nothing he'd learned from Goblin about battle shivers and fighting in formation covered what had just happened. Had Indi Shiver found Coral Shiver and done
this
to it already? Was his mother . . . gone?

“Razor's dead,” Barkley whispered in wonder. “Do you think any of his Line is alive?” The remaining bull mariners, less than half, were divided into small groups. They would become Indi Shiver sharks or else. Join or die.

“I vote we not stick around to find out,” Gray told his friend.

Barkley nodded and began picking his way through the greenie. They were some distance from the battle waters when Gray felt a prickle run down his spine and recognized it for what it was—danger!

“Swim!” he shouted to Barkley. The dogfish made a crazy turn just as a mako crashed into the seabed where he was an instant before, getting a mouthful of sand for his trouble.

Gray managed to shift to his left before a blue shark struck in an equally vicious manner. The slight move was enough to cause the attacking shark to miss his dorsal. But only barely!

Gray couldn't believe that these two sharks, not much bigger than Barkley, would come after a shark his size. But whatever they lacked in size, these mariners more than made up for in speed and cunning. The two swam in tandem, weaving and switching position like greenie in a strong tide. They turned and came again.

“What do we do? What do we do?” cried Barkley, hysteria creeping into his voice.

Gray gave him a tail slap to the flank. “Get above me and stay there!” Luckily Barkley was good at close-order swimming. Gray could feel the dogfish right above his dorsal. When Gray became leader of Rogue, he'd ramped up the training a few notches. Striiker loved it, but the rest of the shiver had grumbled. Despite all his considerable complaining, Barkley had learned a few things since Tuna Run.

“Make sure they don't peel you away!” Gray reminded.

“Right!” Barkley answered in a hiccupping voice, switching his tail back and forth to gather speed. “I got it.” The dogfish needed to protect Gray's topside from attack if they were going to survive.

“You can swim, but you can't hide!” yelled the mako as the pair came forward in a rush. The two sharkkind performed an attack Gray recognized as Hake Sideslip, with both doing the move in its mirror opposite as they constantly swapped positions. It was incredible. If he survived the next minute, Gray would have to rethink all the moves he'd learned from Goblin.

The Hake Sideslip faked a snout-to-snout ram, but then rolled into a sideways attack on a back fin. Since the two sharks were doing the move together, Gray couldn't counter with Waving Greenie as he was taught. If Gray did that, one of the two attackers would have an easy strike on Gray's left or right pectoral fin as both couldn't be defended at the same time.

Instead, Gray did a rolling turn and angled away in a very common move called Grouper Swims Away. Usually shortened to Swim Away, this was basically the same as fleeing. The important thing was to not swim in terror. You needed to keep looking for a way to turn the situation to your advantage and go back on offense.

“So even though you're swimming from a fight, you're swimming away with
purpose
!” Goblin had told him, before saying that he himself would never, ever, use such a cowardly move. Here, though, there was no choice. Gray wasn't experienced enough to match himself against the two well-trained mariners and protect Barkley. He needed to use his size and strength to his advantage. But how?

Gray slipped into a falling current of colder water and plunged downward into a thick kelp bed. He felt the green-greenie scrape past his flanks. Strands even got caught in his mouth, but he plowed forward anyway. The Indi mariners closed the distance. They weren't afraid of a little seaweed, either, and this was what Gray was counting on. He hoped Barkley would understand what he was doing. Yelling directions would defeat the purpose.

Gray found a coral pillar that was big enough. He accelerated, whipping his tail back and forth, then cut a turn completely around the coral. The move was called Sea Snake Protects Its Tail. Some of the combat moves Gray had been taught were named in confusing ways, but this one was easy. Every shark made the mistake of trying to catch a sea snake by the tail when they were young. What that got you was a bite on the snout!

When Gray emerged from behind the pillar of coral, he was zooming straight at his two attackers. Surprise! Gray smashed into the mako, snout to snout. He weighed much, much more than that shark and heard its spine audibly snap. It sank, a surprised look frozen on its face.

The blue shark was thrown off and lost its forward speed. Before it could do anything, Barkley bit it in the gills—a small bite, but lethal. The blue shark keeled over and sank, warm blood rising from the wound.

“Oh, no,” Barkley said. “What did I do?” Then the dogfish threw up.

Gray heard other patrols in the area and didn't know what his next move should be. They had beaten their attackers with a combination of luck and skill. If they met another pair of Indi mariners, their luck would end for sure. Most likely with their lives.

“Keep down!” hissed an urgent voice. “Get low, or you'll be seen!”

Gray turned to the voice and couldn't believe his eyes. “Onyx!” he whispered. The blacktip was a member of Coral Shiver's Line.

“Is he really here?” Barkley asked in a dulled voice. “Or are we dead?”

“We're not dead,” replied Onyx. “But we will be if you don't stay quiet!”

“SWIM LOW AND SLOW,” ONYX TOLD THEM. “Don't churn up any sand, or they'll see us. You think you two can do that?”

Gray was flabbergasted! Even though he and Barkley were searching for
anyone
from Coral Shiver, it was still a shock to see Onyx. Was Gray's mother nearby, too? Was she all right? There were so many questions to ask, but they couldn't stop and talk. They were in serious danger.

“We can do it,” Gray said, pushing the shocked Barkley forward. “Nice and easy.”

“Always were a load of trouble,” Onyx muttered under his breath. The blacktip led them through algae-covered canyons of rock. Luckily there was plenty of waving greenie floating up from the bottom to hide their movements, as Barkley wasn't swimming at his sneaky best. Gray risked taking a peek at the sun-mottled water above and breathed a sigh of relief when he saw no sharkkind.

After another quarter-mile, they came to a sheltered area surrounded by colorful coral. Gray's heart thudded louder and louder as Onyx guided them through a hidden swimming lane. It blocked the views from above and to the sides—just like the one leading into Coral Shiver's old homewaters.

The swimming lane jogged back and forth. It would be easy to lose your way, and that was the point. Gray's mind raced as the path finally opened into a large central area.

“Where are we? What is this place?” Barkley whispered. He was still stunned from the fight.

Gray's heart leapt when he saw Prime Minister Shocks, the old moray eel who had been the leader of the Coral Shiver dwellers since Gray was a pup. Morrison, the crusty old crab, was busy arguing with Timmons, the sea snail! Aqualina, the red tang, was speaking with Dundee, the sunfish! And there were others, too! Shocks saw Gray, and the eel stopped the conversation he was having with Kanter, the sea horse leader. Soon everyone was staring. It got so still and quiet, Gray heard the water whisking past the algae-slick rocks around them.

“Hi, everyone,” Gray said in a soft voice.

The silence remained deafening. Gray was about to say something else when he saw her. There, hovering off to the side by a blue coral spire covered with lumos, was his mother. She had been blocked earlier by the same pillar of coral. Now she stared at him as if she couldn't believe her eyes.

“Gray?” she asked, her voice catching in her throat.

Her mouth and nose barbels vibrated so much, he could feel the movement in the still water. It tickled a little, like when he was a pup.

“Mom!” He swam to his mother, bumping her a little harder than he meant to. She skidded sideways and scattered a colorful group of tangs. “Mom, Mom, Mom!” he yelled. “You're here! You're actually here! I—I missed you so much!”

“
Shhh
, it's okay, Gray,” Sandy told him, rubbing his back with her tail.

Gray felt tears well up in his eyes. “I can't believe it's you! I can't believe I finally found you!”

Onyx swam up to them both. “So, I picked up this wayward shark for you to question.”

Sandy chuckled, crying freely. “Thank you, Onyx.”

“Like a bad clamshell, this one,” the blacktip said with a grin. “I guess we can't get rid of him. And maybe that's not so bad.” Onyx looked over Gray from snout to tail tip. “He's grown. Again. And learned how to fight.”

Sandy grew concerned. “What do you mean?” she asked. Gray's mom looked at him crossly, her barbels now pulsing as they did when she was mad. “What happened?”

“I—we—didn't want to. . . .” Shame reddened Gray's face and his tail drooped. He had just sent another shark to the Sparkle Blue. It would have been unimaginable when he was a pup.

“They had no choice, Sandy,” Onyx told her. “I was watching the Indi patrol and saw them dive and attack. I figured it was Razor Shiver survivors—Razor's gone, by the way—and then I saw these two.” Onyx flipped his tail in frustration and spoke to Gray. “I would have helped, but you were too far away. Where did you learn that move? Both of you fought well.”

Gray looked over his shoulder at Barkley. Some of the dogfish's color seemed to have returned, but he was still shaky, listing to the side a little.

“I—I feel sick again,” Barkley muttered.

Onyx tapped the dogfish's flank with his tail to steady him. “It was him or you, Barkley. Did you want it to be you?”

“We wouldn't want that!”

Barkley turned and saw his cousins. They were all there! Barkley started crying his eyes out as his family enveloped him. Seeing his friend flank to flank with his loved ones got Gray welling up again. Pretty soon he gave himself over to laughing and crying and rubbing against his mom. But he didn't care. It felt so good!

He even met his new brother and sister, Riprap and Ebbie. They were little nurse shark pups who couldn't speak yet and mostly hid in the greenie, but they smiled at Gray. Both had the cutest little barbels of their own, just like their mother. He immediately loved them. What an overwhelming joy that his family was safe and sound!

They talked for hours, catching up. Gray and Barkley didn't get all the details of the attack by Razor Shiver that had destroyed Coral Shiver's reef, but they didn't really want them. Even now, it was obvious that most of the sharks and dwellers here were still dealing with the currents from that terrible day.

It turned out no one in Coral Shiver knew the attack was really the work of Goblin and Velenka. Quickeyes, who had been first but was now leader of Coral Shiver because of Atlas's death in the attack, wanted every bit of information. After the story, he looked to Sandy (who was now second in the Line) and Onyx (first) and said in a low voice, “One day, maybe we'll get a chance to talk with those two.”

Everyone in the circle knew that there would be no conversation involved. Gray hoped Quickeyes wouldn't go looking for trouble. Even though the thresher was a strong shark, fighting Goblin wasn't a smart thing.

Gray and Barkley recounted all their adventures. Sandy puffed with pride when Barkley told them Gray was the leader of Rogue Shiver. She gave her tail a swirl and smiled as she had when he'd gotten a good grade in class. For his part, Gray was totally embarrassed. He blurted out, “It's a really small shiver, though!”

After a while, he noticed that everyone was listening—really listening. Quickeyes and Onyx were asking for Gray and Barkley's opinions, weighing their words as if they were real shiver sharks. There was actual respect in their eyes when Barkley told everyone about stopping Goblin's plan to take over the North Atlantis at the Tuna Run.

After Barkley was finished, Gray asked, “Why choose this place? Why settle so close to Razor Shiver?”

“It wasn't planned,” Sandy answered. “We swam away as fast as we could, and this was where we stopped to rest. It's hidden and can be defended, two things that were very important right then.”

“Yes,” agreed Quickeyes. “It was the best we could hope for under the circumstances.”

“Goblin once told me about sharks with markings called tattoos. They were named Indi Shiver, from the Indi Ocean. The sharkkind that fought Razor Shiver had those. Could it be them? The Indi Ocean is so far away.”

“Yup,” Onyx said. “They're Indi Shiver.”

“How can you be so sure?” asked Barkley.

“Because,” Onyx told them, as he turned and showed his own tattoos, “I used to be a member.”