The Battle of Riptide

by EJ Altbacker

  She darted away and Lochlan went on in a lower voice. “Finnivus and Indi Shiver have to pay! I can get in touch with my feelings later.”

  “Blood for blood only serves to foul the water,” Takiza said. “Your father knew that.”

  So this was Finnivus’s doing. The tiger shark King Finnivus was vain and cruel. That Lochlan had bested him in every contest and hunt the few times they had met when they were pups was a sore point with the Indi tiger. Takiza had hoped Finnivus would grow out of such stupidity and become a good leader. The cold feeling in the pit of his stomach told him this hope was now dead.

  Lochlan ground his triangular teeth. “Will you help us? We attack tomorrow.”

  Takiza winced inside as he saw a sizable gash on the golden great white’s side, most likely from the battle. It had been expertly stitched by a doctor and surgeon fish from Lochlan’s shiver.

  “Absolutely not,” Takiza answered with a shake of his gauzy fins. Lochlan stiffened until Takiza added, “But only because you will lose if you act so soon.”

  “Then we go down fighting. That’s the way Father would have—”

  Takiza slashed his fins in front of Lochlan’s left eye so the great white would be sure to see. “Do not put words in your father’s mouth he would not actually say! Your father would want you to protect your shivermates, not lead them to their deaths!”

  Lochlan quieted and after a moment asked, “What would you have me do?”

  “Leave the Sific.”

  “WHAT?” Lochlan yelled so loudly that the whitetip reef shark poked her head inside once more.

  “Is everything—”

  “Kendra! Please!” exclaimed Lochlan, and she left quickly. “My first,” he told Takiza, which was explanation enough. The new king sighed. “Okay, swim that by me again.”

  “I would like you to leave this ocean for now. You are the rightful king of the Sific and cannot throw your life away.”

  Lochlan churned his tail from side to side in agitation. “Do not call me that! My father was the king.”

  “As you wish,” Takiza told him.

  “I won’t swim away from my problems, Takiza. I won’t. Finnivus ate my father after the attack. Thank Tyro Mum wasn’t alive to see that. You ask too much.”

  Finnivus ate Lochlan I! Takiza’s mind reeled. It was something out of the barbarian age. He struggled to hold his own emotions in check. “I am not asking you to swim away from your problems. I am asking you to swim toward an opportunity. Leave your forces behind and come with a select few.”

  “Will this opportunity involve a chance to take a fin from that vain and evil fish Finnivus?”

  Takiza sighed. “Unfortunately, yes. I believe so.”

  With that, Lochlan nodded grimly. He swam out of the cave and began giving orders.

  “YOUR PRIVATE CAVE IS READY,” SAID THE LIONFISH, one of the hosts for Slaggernacks. Even for a lionfish, she was stunning with her vibrant purple-and-blue stripes. But underneath those colorful fins were razor-sharp spines that could inject poison into an unsuspecting victim. “Do you have something for me?” she asked.

  Gray was carrying a bonefish he had caught earlier, and now he ejected it from his mouth. This one was barely two feet long, but bonefish were highly prized and could be seasoned well, which is what they did at Slaggernacks. The place could earn up to six or even eight fish from someone who had a craving for bonefish but was too slow to catch one. That was how Slaggernacks made a profit and kept themselves fed.

  “Very nice,” said the hostess as she looked over the bonefish. “There’s a swell band playing tonight if you’re staying around.”

  “Why don’t you show us to our cave?” asked Mari pointedly.

  The hostess sniffed but did as requested. After the lionfish left them at the cave entrance, Mari grumbled, “I really hate this place.” She swished her long thresher’s tail in annoyance and caught Gray watching. “What?” she asked.

  Gray completely lost his current of thought. “Um, other than searching the entire Big Blue, there’s no better place to find information about Coral Shiver, and that’s why we’re here.” His mother, Sandy, was the third in Line for Coral, so she would be with the shiver. Or someone from the shiver would know if . . . Gray shook the thought from his mind.

  When he had last seen his mother, she was alive and well, and there was no reason to think otherwise. Gray missed her terribly. Frustratingly, neither Barkley nor he had seen a single sign of anyone from Coral Shiver since their epic fight with Goblin Shiver at the Tuna Run.

  As if reading his mind, Mari said, “If Goblin, Razor, or someone from their shivers, sees us . . .” she trailed off, not needing to say anything else.

  Their miraculous escape from Goblin and Razor Shivers at the Tuna Run was now the stuff of legends in the North Atlantis. Of course, that would be the case when the mythic Siamese fighting fish Takiza showed up and caused some sort of glowing whirlpool disturbance to suck up Goblin and his shiver, tossing them away like minnows in a strong current.

  “That’s why we’re using the back area of Slaggernacks,” Gray told her. “So we won’t be seen.”

  There were several private caves set apart from the greenie-covered main area. That area was more of a restaurant—that was a landshark word—with plenty of areas to hover and eat seasoned fish. When Gray had first tried seasoned fish, he’d hated it, but now he enjoyed it more and more. And there was entertainment from various dweller singing groups. The best ones featured whales and dolphins, although there was a sea horse chorus called Sea Horsing Around that Gray liked very much. Gray wondered again how Gafin had thought up the idea for creating Slaggernacks.

  Gafin was the king of the sea urchins and used Slaggernacks as his home base of operations for his tidal pool of murky dealings. It was hard to picture entire shivers of sharkkind listening to a sea urchin, but Gafin controlled thousands of poisonous dwellers. The toxic gang included stonefish, octos, lionfish, jellies, and many others who could send even the biggest fin to the Sparkle Blue. After all, you couldn’t be on guard every second of every day.

  Although no one ever actually saw Gafin, both Razor and Goblin Shivers respected the truce he demanded from anyone who swam in his territory.

  This particular back cave had a crisp and cold current that made it easy to breathe. The secluded greenie-hidden back caves were guarded by poisonous dwellers who protected the safety of those inside and guaranteed their privacy. Supposedly.

  “Oww!” Gray muttered under his breath. He had hit his head on the roof of the entrance to the cave. Barkley would have told him his head was getting fatter for sure. Would he ever stop growing? Mari pretended not to notice his embarrassment. Gray liked that about her.

  “The dwellers here can’t be trusted,” Mari said. “What if someone tells Goblin we’re here? Or Velenka?”

  Gray’s mind involuntarily pictured the beautiful and sinister mako shark.

  Velenka . . .

  She was Goblin’s fifth, guiding his fins as if she were swimming for him. She was the one who had told Gray he was a megalodon. She wanted Gray to rule as a figurehead after getting rid of Goblin and Razor. In fact, Goblin still didn’t know that Velenka had planned to betray him right after she had dealt with Razor. Gray was certain he would have been the next to swim the Sparkle Blue after those two.

  “Youse wouldn’t be meanin’ me, would youse?” A random rock in the cave floated off the fine-grained sandy bottom. It wasn’t a rock, of course. It was a stonefish named Trank. Mari involuntarily recoiled and moved back. The urge to get away from the poisonous fish was strong in the enclosed cave, even for a shark. Trank worked for Gafin, but would never point him out. “Gafin likes to keep a low profile,” was the greenie-covered fish’s standard answer.

  “Of course not, Trank,” Mari answered. “You’re t
he most trustworthy stonefish I know.”

  “Well, thanks—hey, wait a second, how many stonefish do youse know?”

  Gray waved a fin at the stonefish. “That’s not important.”

  “It is to me!” huffed Trank. “Us stonefish are very loyal. We stick by our deals, unlike youse sharkkind.” The stonefish gave them a knowing look. Velenka had double-crossed Trank and put him in prison with Barkley, Mari, Shell, and Snork. That was how they’d met in the first place.

  “Unbelievable!” Mari said, swishing her tail back and forth. “Well, I’m not sticking up for Velenka, so you have me there.”

  “There you go,” Gray told the stonefish. “She admits you’re more trustworthy than Velenka.”

  “That’s not what I meant,” grumbled Mari.

  “No take backs!” Trank shouted and whirled his fins in a way to signal the end of this particular current in the conversation. Mari wanted to continue her argument with the cantankerous fish, but Gray gave her a pleading look and she quieted.

  “What have you found out?”

  Now Trank seemed embarrassed. Mari leapt into the silence. “Nothing! Again.”

  The stonefish’s small fins circled furiously but then drooped. “You’re right. And when you’re right, you’re right. And you’re right.”

  “Coral Shiver was at the Tuna Run,” Gray told the stonefish, his voice rising a little as he slapped the rough wall of the cavern with his tail. “How can no one know anything about an entire shiver?”

  “The shiver youse came from was small, and the Big Blue’s mighty big—hence the qualifying first part of its name, which is big.”

  “Now’s not the time for joking,” Mari scolded.

  “Who’s joking?” Trank replied. “Gafin takes a contract seriously. We’re tracking down leads but comin’ up empty. I actually think that’s a good thing.”

  “How would that be a good thing?” asked Gray, a bit annoyed. He had been dropping off a steady stream of fish at Slaggernacks for payment and was tired from hunting around the clock to both feed himself and pay the huge number of fish that Gafin demanded in exchange for his help finding Coral Shiver.

  “If we can’t find ’em, neither can anyone else,” Trank told Gray. “They’re smart enough to keep their snouts in the greenie while Razor and Goblin fight it out.”

  Gray flicked his pectoral fins in frustration. The stonefish did have a point, but it didn’t make him feel any better.

  Trank chewed on a piece of greenie hanging off his upper lip. He really did look like a sandy stone come to life. “Look, Gafin told me to tell youse he’s sorry and youse can ease up on the fish for a while. We’ll keep looking, free of charge.”

  “Really?” Mari asked in wonder.

  “Youse don’t have to say it that way,” Trank replied. “Makes us look bad not being able to find a shiver from the boonie-greenie. Why, just yesterday, I swam twenty miles to personally track down a lead I knew was a bunch of chowder, but I went anyway. I mean, whoever heard of a sea dragon named Yappy who never stops talkin’ and brags about giant cousins who live down in the Dark Blue?”

  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! S
omewhere 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.