Kingdom of the Deep

by EJ Altbacker

  “Don’t be such a turtle,” hissed Hokuu, floating above her. A little higher and they would be spotted for sure because the water was frighteningly clear here. And the Riptide mariners—at least the ones called ghostfins—were good at hiding and surprise attacks from the abundant greenie in the area. It was a combination that Velenka didn’t want to try her luck against.

  Hokuu sensed what she was thinking and remained unconcerned. “You believe these pups can see through my powers? Think again, dear.”

  Indeed, there was a hazy film encircling them that the frilled shark had created. Velenka began trusting it more when a scout passed no more than ten strokes off to the left. Even if the bull shark was half blind, they should have been detected.

  Velenka relaxed. “You’re right again, Hokuu.”

  The frilled shark sent a series of intricate ripples cascading through the length of his body. “Of course I am.” He turned those unsettling emerald eyes on her once more. “Rely on that. I’m always right.”

  Velenka fidgeted, flexing her fins, but said nothing.

  Hokuu whipped his tail against her side, causing her to start. “What is it?” he asked in a low voice. “Something is on your mind, and you’d be wise to tell me this instant.”

  “I don’t know what I’m doing here!” she admitted.

  The Riptide mariner heard Velenka and streaked toward them. Suddenly Hokuu was gone and the filmy haze in front of her disappeared. The bull shark saw Velenka and shouted “You! It’s y—”

  Hokuu’s tail speared the shark through the gills and he bit the scout’s head off before the bull could finish his sentence. The frilled shark waved his pointy tail at Velenka in a no-no motion.

  “Shhh,” Hokuu hissed as the transparent barrier again took its place around them. “Just because they can’t see us doesn’t mean they can’t hear us. Different katas in shar-kata do different things, this one being good for hiding in plain sight.”

  Velenka lowered her voice. “I apologize. But what’s on my mind is still the same.”

  “You’re helping me bring about a new order, Velenka.”

  She saw no way out of asking more questions of Hokuu. That could get her killed. But not knowing what she was supposed to be doing could also get her killed. Velenka sighed. “Yes, you’ve said that. But I still have no idea what role to play. You have unbelievable powers. Finnivus and his entire armada would be no match for you. What possible reason do you need me?”

  “Because I have to speak with Kaleth and I can’t while she’s hiding in Fathomir. That’s what Bollagan named their homewaters here. Stupid name, but very defensible. It would be too risky for me to try a frontal attack. I have to even the odds a bit. And then there’s Takiza—he’s another problem.” The frilled shark made a loop with his tail. “It’s all connected. The Seazarein is connected to Takiza, who’s connected to Gray, who is connected to you.” Hokuu tapped her between the eyes with his razor-sharp tail. It still had the scent of the scout’s blood. “You’re friends with Gray, aren’t you?”

  Velenka ran through every possible answer. Her first impulse would be to lie and say yes, but she had a feeling this was a test. One that, if failed, would have her swimming the Sparkle Blue.

  “You know I’m not,” she answered.

  Hokuu smiled. “I do know that. But I also know that you were friends. And I know he’d like to talk with you.”

  “I tried to manipulate Gray before,” Velenka said, thinking to their time as members of Goblin Shiver. “In every way possible. I separated him from his friends. I had him placed in Goblin’s Line. Nothing worked! He figured out I was up to something.” Velenka chuckled. “I hate to say this, but that big, dumb fin managed to outsmart me.”

  “You’re going to figure out a way to talk to Gray when he gets here.”

  “So Gray will come this way? To us?”

  Hokuu’s eyes glittered. “Of course he will. Like I said, it’s all connected. Gray loves Riptide. He cares for his friends too much.”

  “But what will I talk with him about?” she asked.

  Hokuu’s tail whipped underneath and smacked her smooth belly, causing Velenka to slam her mouth shut. “Stop talking. You don’t want to convince me that you’re useless, do you? Not when we’re so close.”

  Velenka shook her head. “No, that’s not what I want.” She wasn’t satisfied at all with the frill’s non-answer, but there was nothing to do about it. Velenka smiled and nodded, knowing that she was powerless.

  “Good, because when the moon is full, it’ll all be over. Just a week. Gray will come, you’ll see. And then I can have my chat with Kaleth!” Hokuu said, his own voice rising. Two Riptide mariners swam over to investigate. “You figure out how you’re going to help me . . . and I’ll start making Riptide Shiver bleed to draw Gray here.”

  Hokuu turned and jetted at the mariners. He wrapped both of them in his coils and snapped their spines with a sickening craaack that vibrated through the waters. Alarms went up from the other scouts. “Let’s have some fun!” Hokuu yelled.

  Then there was screaming and blood in the water.

  Velenka pressed her snout into the seabed and wished she was back in her whalebone prison cell.

  CHAPTER 15

  GRAY WAS GLAD THE JOURNEY TO THE ARKTIK was a long one. The icy blue water slowed the thoughts swirling in his mind, and for that he was thankful. Neither Shear nor any of his squad chose to speak to him, and that was okay since he wasn’t in the talking mood.

  Gray hadn’t asked to be the Seazarein’s Aquasidor. If Kaleth decided to give the job to someone else, she wouldn’t have to ask him twice if he minded. All she would see was a bubble trail as he rocketed away to rejoin Riptide Shiver. But if Takiza and Kaleth thought he was the best one to keep the peace, he would try his hardest. If that helped them stop Hokuu, Gray would do everything he could as Aquasidor.

  Gray chuckled sadly. When he was growing up with Barkley in the warm, peaceful Caribbi Sea, he would whine constantly about the lack of action and adventure there. Coral Shiver’s reef had been so peaceful and quiet! Days would pass with nothing at all happening but the sun shining into the water.

  What a huge chowderhead I was to complain, Gray thought.

  It wouldn’t do to bellyache now, though. He was older, and things were expected of him. But a day or two spent lounging in the Caribbi would be great. He would even settle disputes if anyone asked. Gray could see it now, solving the big argument between the shellheads and urchins over who got to eat a squid who had died of old age. That would be sweet. . . .

  “There’s a problem, Aquasidor,” said Shear.

  “Huh?” Gray’s daydream had been so complete he almost bumped into Shear, who had stopped dead in the water. He recovered and hid this by harrumphing, “Yes, of course there’s a problem. That’s why the Seazarein sent me.”

  The prehistore tiger rolled his eyes and gestured with a fin. “No, we have a problem because it seems that a war is beginning right this minute.”

  Gray looked past Shear’s flank and saw an armada of at least two hundred sharks facing off with two battle pods of orcas!

  “For the love of Tyro!” Gray huffed. “I told them not to do that!”

  “Seems they didn’t listen,” Shear answered.

  Gray slashed his tail through the water. “We can talk about your sarcasm later, Shear. But right this second, how about we stop this stupidity from happening?”

  Shear snapped to attention hover and dipped his snout. “Orders, sir!”

  “Bull Shark Rush, straight in. Keep them from fighting, but don’t hurt anyone.” Gray considered how far he should go. He had to make it clear this sort of thing wouldn’t be tolerated. “Shear, what I mean is keep yourselves safe and don’t hurt anyone permanently.”

  The great white guardian leader cracked a s
mile. “You heard the Aquasidor! Bump and bruise, nothing more!”

  “Let’s go!” shouted Gray. He switched his muscular tail back and forth, accelerating into an attack sprint. The frigid water whisked past his gills and Gray felt more focused than he had in weeks. He wouldn’t let these two groups go to war. That would be good for Hokuu and bad for everyone else. “Not on my watch,” Gray muttered as he angled toward Tik-Tun.

  It took two hundred tail strokes to get within shouting distance. “Stop! Stop, I say!”

  Tik-Tun saw Gray as he skidded in front of his hundred orca mariners, all ready for battle. “It’s too late! We will defend ourselves!”

  Gray circled so he had a better view. Palink was swimming the diamondhead, and Hideg Shiver’s triangular formation was gaining speed.

  “Give it a second,” he told the orca leader.

  Shear’s twenty finja smashed right through the entire Hideg Shiver formation from one end to the other. The guardian captain was good as his word. Though the finja bumped, rammed, and tail whipped any mariner in their path, none were hurt. Well, none were permanently hurt, though more than a few drifted unconscious in the clear, cold water.

  The entire formation collapsed. Palink was mashed between Shear and another finja and brought before Gray and Tik-Tun. The blue shark was furious. “Treachery!” he shouted. “How could you turn on your own kind? I knew you were a flipper at heart!”

  Gray wanted to tail slap Palink so hard that he’d spin for a day. However good it might feel, that wouldn’t help solve this problem. Instead, he gnashed and ground his teeth. In the quiet waters between the two forces, it sounded like rocks tumbling in a strong current.

  “I judge everyone I meet the same way. Are they a chowderhead or not? And you, Palink, in addition to being prejudiced, are a chowderhead.”

  “What?” Palink sputtered. “You can’t call me that! You’re the Aquasidor—you can’t favor one side over another! I’ll report this to the Seazarein!”

  “I speak for the Seazarein!” Gray roared. “I told you to wait and instead you gathered an armada!”

  Palink’s tail drooped and, to his credit, he acted somewhat ashamed. “Well, the flippers—” Gray gave Palink a steely stare and the blue shark corrected himself. “The orcas were going to take our best hunting territory for themselves!”

  “Untrue,” growled Tik-Tun. “We had just come back from our journey. Some of my pod did hunt, but only to eat during the swim.”

  And then it came to Gray. The solution he was looking for! He had been thinking too much like a shark and not enough like an orca. Or, he thought guiltily, too much like a fin and not at all like a flipper.

  “I’ve discussed your problem with the wise and all-knowing Seazarein.” Gray couldn’t believe he’d just said that, but it didn’t hurt for both groups to think that Kaleth was a good ruler. “If you’ll swim with me, I’ll tell you what she recommends.”

  Palink had a nice bruise darkening his snout. “By recommends, do you mean orders?” he huffed.

  Gray smiled, grinding his teeth, but quietly this time. Palink could be such a tailbender! “Why don’t you listen first?”

  In the end, both sides were not only satisfied, they were actually happy! Gray divided the disputed territory into thirds, two-thirds of which went to Hideg Shiver. They had many more mouths to feed, after all. But since orcas were different from sharkkind in that they didn’t actually want a set territory, that didn’t matter much to Tik-Tun and his pod. But this way, they always had a place that Palink and Hideg Shiver would never set a fin inside.

  Here’s where Gray’s stroke of, if not genius, at least good thinking, came in. Orcas migrated in search of better hunting, and it didn’t always occur on a set schedule. What Tik-Tun and the orcas received was the right to travel across Hideg Shiver anytime they wanted as long as they gave one day’s notice. And when they were away, Hideg Shiver could hunt the remaining third of the disputed territory, which they had to promptly leave when the orcas returned with the same one-day notice being given. It worked for everyone.

  Palink gave Gray an embarrassed look when they reached the end of the negotiations. “I can’t believe I was going to start a war and there was a bloodless solution this good.”

  “It is truly a wise decision,” rumbled Tik-Tun in his deep voice. “I have come to expect nothing less.”

  “Oh, you expected less, Tik-Tun,” answered Gray. “But I’m glad to beat your expectations this time.”

  “I’m sorry for causing this trouble, Gray,” Palink said. “You’re right about me. I am a chowderhead and unworthy to be Hideg Shiver’s leader.”

  “A good leader is the one who recognizes his mistakes,” Gray told the blue shark. “And everyone can be a chowderhead from time to time. Ask my friend Barkley. He thinks I’m one most any given day.”

  The three laughed together. Palink bowed to the orca leader. “Tik-Tun, I haven’t been a friend to the orcas, or any who swim with flippers through the Big Blue. But I’m willing to try and change my ways. I humbly ask you for the chance.”

  “You shall have it, leader Palink,” rumbled Tik-Tun. “I am also guilty of these types of thoughts regarding sharkkind. Once begun, they are hard to stop.”

  Gray gave each a tap to the flanks. “I think you two could change that. If you’re willing to work together.”

  Gray smiled when Tik-Tun and Palink nodded in agreement.

  Sometimes, being the Aquasidor wasn’t half bad.

  CHAPTER 16

  THERE WAS BLOOD IN THE WATER. GRAY COULD smell it, as could everyone in his entourage. They were tired from the punishing pace they had settled into, but he was happy to be away from the floating ice of the Arktik. This should have been a nice, stress-free swim toward the Seazarein’s territory, where some other huge problem was undoubtedly waiting. But trouble was already swimming just ahead of them.

  When Gray first smelled the blood, it was faint and he ignored it. The Big Blue was the Big Blue, and fins and dwellers were either having lunch or being lunch. That was the way of the watery world. But then the guardian scouts, who traveled ahead of the group, came with news. It wasn’t the blood of one shark or dweller. There were many different types. Too many kinds and too much of it.

  Gray had to investigate. Even before he was Kaleth’s Aquasidor, he couldn’t have ignored this. He ordered Shear to increase their pace. It took another day before Gray saw the mass of sharkkind. Their mariners had a solid defensive screen, but inside that were many older shiver sharks and pups. And though blood was thick in the water, there was no attacking force that Gray could see for a long while. But then there was a disturbance.

  “Their rear guard is being attacked,” said Shear. He, like the other guardians, was nearly invisible. Gray peered into the distance. He couldn’t see anyone striking, but the mariners were fighting someone.

  Gray realized who the mariners were at the same time Shear said, “Finja! The renegades!”

  “It’s Riptide and they’re being attacked!” Gray told him. “Help them!”

  “No, the danger is too great!” Shear answered, shaking his snout. “We must withdraw.”

  “Do what you want!” Gray said as he accelerated into an attack sprint, bursting through his barrier of guardians. “But I’m not leaving my friends!”

  Shear had no choice but to follow. “Protect the Aquasidor at all cost!” he shouted as he caught up with Gray. The water was murky and provided some cover. Gray could see the dim outlines of Hokuu’s mako finja assaulting the outclassed Riptide defenders.

  Gray shouted, “Riptiiiide!” as his small force crashed into the fight. Using his senses as Takiza had taught him, he could feel the electric shadow signals of the renegade makos. Each sharkkind had their own image, and because of this Gray could separate friend from foe. He rammed one attacker and Shear t
ook its fin.

  The makos were surprised. It looked like they would be scattered, but they were too skilled for that. Instead, ten more joined the fight. At least they were concentrating on Gray and his guardians and not the sharkkind of Riptide. Soon it was a chaotic battle with roaring charges and flashing teeth everywhere.

  In all the confusion Gray was swept clear of the heaviest fighting after he bit the tail off a prehistore mako finja and sent it spiraling toward the seabed. It was tough to send them to the Sparkle Blue, but it could be done. As Gray turned to rejoin Shear and the rest of his guardians, a huge horror rose in front of him. The monster’s flexible eel-like body was longer than him by a good ten feet with a spike on its tail.

  Gray’s eyes widened. It was Hokuu!

  The frilled shark knew what he was thinking and replied, “Yes, it’s me.”

  Hokuu struck with his tail, tapping Gray between the eyes. Gray was paralyzed! He couldn’t move a muscle!

  “Let’s talk,” Hokuu told him with a horrible, toothy smile. A misty wall encircled them both. “I like a little privacy when I’m speaking with a friend.”

  The battle a few tail strokes away reached a fever pitch, but no one could see them. Gray found he could move his mouth enough to speak. “I’m not your friend. You’re evil!”

  Hokuu looked positively wounded as he balanced Gray on his tail so he wouldn’t drift to the sand below. “I’m not evil. Just misunderstood.”

  Gray struggled against the paralyzing touch Hokuu had given him. He had seen Takiza do this same thing. It wasn’t fun, but it was temporary. When it wore off, he would attack.

  Keep him talking, Gray thought. “The Seazarein knows your secret plan. She won’t allow you to let Drinnok and the other prehistores into the Big Blue to kill everyone.”

  Hokuu snorted. “Secret plan? Maybe secret from you. They don’t tell you much, do they? Both Kaleth and Takiza love to keep secrets.”

  Gray forced his fins to flex. They did, but only a little. And he couldn’t move his tail at all. “Takiza stopped you once. He’ll do it again.”