Kingdom of the Deep

by EJ Altbacker

  “Velenka, do you think your escape was too easy?” Barkley asked. Takiza raised an eyebrow to Gray, impressed with the intelligence of the question.

  “No,” the mako said dreamily. “There was always one guard. One finja. Nothing was different.”

  “She killed a finja?” Striiker mused.

  Barkley waggled his tail to get their attention. “If Velenka’s coming with us, I want to remind everyone what kind of fin she is.”

  “Barkley, you don’t have to—” Gray began.

  Takiza cut him off with a tail swoosh. “Watch and listen.”

  Barkley proceeded. “Velenka, to save your own life, would you kill me?”

  “Yes,” she answered.

  “Would you get rid of all my friends to save yourself?”

  There was no hesitation. “Yes.”

  “Barkley, stop it,” said Mari. “We know this.”

  But they didn’t really. And Barkley didn’t stop.

  “What about everyone in the Big Blue?” he asked. “Would you send everyone to the Sparkle Blue to save your own life?”

  There was a pause. Gray grew cold inside as the mako seemed to consider the question, even in her trance state. “I don’t know.”

  “Why don’t you know?” asked Barkley, genuinely curious.

  “Because I might get lonely after,” the mako told them.

  “Oh, my,” whispered Snork, his eyes wide. “Do we really have to take her with us?”

  “We’ll keep her under guard.” Striiker nodded, not taking his eyes off Velenka. “If Hokuu follows us because of her, he won’t be attacking the rest of our shiver sharks. That’s worth something.”

  “Since Kaleth has dumped us, it’s our only option,” Gray told everyone.

  Barkley nodded at Takiza, signaling he was done with his questions to Velenka. The betta flicked a fin between the mako’s eyes. She blinked and regained her senses. She eyed everyone warily, then smiled, her needle teeth flashing. But the smile was her normal one and didn’t reach her eyes, Gray noticed.

  “Sorry I dozed off. Why’s everyone looking at me? It’s been a tough week.” Velenka didn’t know what was going on. “What?” she asked, edginess making her nervous grin wider. “Is this a joke?”

  “I wish it was,” Barkley said. He gestured at the mako with his tail. “That’s who we’re dealing with here, everyone. Never forget it.”

  Gray doubted that anyone ever would.

  CHAPTER 24

  GRAY FOLLOWED BEHIND THE MAIN FORCE OF Riptide sharks but ahead of the rear guard. Velenka swam in front of him, looking around warily. She thought that Hokuu or his finjas would come for her anytime. She was probably right.

  He’ll be coming for everyone if we’re going in the right direction, Gray thought. If Hokuu really is planning to release the prehistores in or around the disputed waters between Hammer and AuzyAuzy Shivers. And if he isn’t, we’re swimming a long way for nothing.

  Striiker had put Velenka under guard of two large mariners. Gray was pretty sure that Barkley had also assigned a few ghostfins to keep an eye on her. And of course Mari didn’t trust Velenka as far as she could drag the mako onto the shore. All in all, Velenka was well watched. And that was okay. You couldn’t be too careful where she was concerned.

  Gray saw Takiza swimming ahead of him and sped up to pull even. He didn’t want to be the one that spoke first because he was still angry. But the betta swam in silence, not saying anything for five, ten, then fifteen minutes.

  Oh, this is stupid, Gray thought. What am I? A pup?

  He waggled his tail and Takiza looked over. “I’m still mad,” he told the betta.

  “That is your right,” he answered.

  Gray found himself grinding his teeth. “But I don’t have time to be mad at you.”

  “Correct.”

  “I wasn’t looking for an answer. I’m speaking here,” Gray said. “When you start the conversation, then you can talk.” Takiza rolled his eyes but didn’t interrupt. “Everything I learned from you is useless.” The betta regarded Gray with a flat stare. “I don’t mean that in a disrespectful way, but all my lifting of large rocks means nothing against Hokuu. He can paralyze me with a touch and there’s nothing I can do about it.”

  “You could not let him touch you,” answered Takiza.

  Now Gray rolled his eyes. “Wow, awesome advice! I didn’t realize it was that simple. Excellent lesson, Shiro.”

  “Open your ears, then,” Takiza said. “Training must be done in a gradual way. Do you think you could have lifted the heaviest rock I placed in your harness the first time we met?”

  “Well, no. Probably not. Definitely not.”

  “Precisely,” continued the betta. “You are at the level you are at today because of the training. That is a fact. Nothing has ever been wasted on you. You have advanced from where you began.”

  “Thanks, I guess,” Gray told him. “But I’m nowhere near Hokuu.”

  The betta laughed, a rare enough event that both Mari and Barkley watched for a moment before turning their eyes onto Velenka once more.

  “Hokuu was my Shiro,” Takiza went on. “Of course you are no match for him, everything being equal. But then, neither am I.”

  Gray lowered his voice. “Are you serious? If you can’t take him, what are we going to do?”

  “Get him to fight us when and where things are not equal, of course.”

  “And that will be when or where?”

  “I do not know,” Takiza answered with infuriating calm. “But when I find out, you will be among the very first I tell. And as far as Hokuu’s paralyzing touch or any of the other abilities he does possess . . . ”

  “Yes?” asked Gray when Takiza paused.

  “You have within you the ability to counter anything he attempts,” the betta answered, drawing closer. Takiza’s eyes were hypnotic as he spoke, his words said with such certainty it gave Gray a jolt of confidence. “Sometimes defeating a superior opponent is not a matter of strength, endurance, intelligence, or even training. Sometimes winning against all odds is simply a matter of will. And Gray, your will is strong. When you understand this, you can do wondrous things.” Takiza paused and smiled at him. “And until then, I am here.”

  The betta swam off. It turned out that even though Gray felt mad, he was still very, very glad to have Takiza around.

  CHAPTER 25

  THEIR PACE WAS BRUTAL. RIPTIDE ARMADA HAD been terribly depleted since the destruction of their homewaters. Even with shiver shark recruits, there were less than five hundred fins moving toward the disputed waters near AuzyAuzy territory.

  The attacks by the invisible mako finja began a day after they set out. At first the strikes were small, nibbling on the edges, causing scouts to disappear. Even though the patrols were all in force, one or two mariners would be picked off from each group and sent to the Sparkle Blue. By the time the rest rallied, the enemy had vanished, once again invisible to the untrained eye.

  Takiza was somewhere close, looking for a chance to strike Hokuu, but Gray couldn’t tell anyone. He thought that Striiker, Barkley, and Mari had figured it out, but he didn’t want to say the words out loud in case he was overheard. And to keep where he was a secret, Takiza couldn’t give away his position by fighting a single finja when it struck. But as far as the rest of the Riptide mariners knew, the betta had simply abandoned them.

  Hokuu didn’t show himself.

  For now.

  After they crossed from the North to the South Sific, the assaults became more persistent. Finja would wait for the Riptide formation to swim across their path and attack the underside or rear of the force, then break away. To counter this, Striiker moved his formation’s position as they went toward their destination, never keeping a straight line. Then the renegade fi
nja ambushed them with attacks in several places at once. The Riptide sharks were confused, trying to defend in every direction.

  “We’re being eaten alive!” Barkley said to Gray.

  “Hey!” yelled Striiker as he swam past. “Stop with the negative waves and do something about it!”

  “What’s there to do?” asked Barkley as Mari and Snork joined him. “We’re a moving target. They know which way we’re going and are waiting for us. Unlike Kaleth’s guardians, we can’t see the enemy.”

  Barkley had lost three ghostfins this morning and was in a foul mood. While his sharks were better than an average mariner, they gave up their advantages by swimming out in the open with the massed formation.

  “It proves we’re going the right way,” Gray said. He tried to be confident, but it didn’t quite work. They were losing sharkkind, and it was sapping the morale of everyone, including him. “We have to keep moving quick.”

  “That’s the hard part,” Snork told everyone. “You make mistakes when you do things too fast.”

  Mari swished her tail as she swam alongside them. “Snork’s right. What if we took some time to eat, or at least looked like we’re taking time to eat? Then maybe we can plan a surprise for the finja.”

  Barkley gave the thresher an impressed nod. “I like your thinking. Gray, can we slow down? Give the ghostfins a chance to move ahead quietly and pick a spot to ambush these flippers.”

  “Striiker won’t like it, but we could use the time to tighten up and hunt,” Gray answered. “We’ll still make it before the full moon.”

  They had made good time and were closing in on the hissing lands where Hokuu would try to release the prehistores.

  Then why am I so worried? thought Gray. Striiker had sent sharks to speak with both AuzyAuzy and Riptide Shivers, but there was no sign of either. Gray realized with a heavy heart that those mariners were swimming the Sparkle Blue. Hokuu wouldn’t want the forces opposing him to get any larger. He would intercept any attempt to make contact with either of Gray’s allies.

  It’s what I would do, Gray thought bitterly.

  They had to swim the current that was flowing. There was nothing else to do but hope they were right. A halt was called. Striiker agreed with the plan and sent out strong hunting parties. It was a good feeding area, and the mariners didn’t have to swim far to bring back multiple fish so everyone could eat.

  Barkley, Snork, and the other ghostfins lost themselves in the greenie. There was a chance that the mako finja were waiting to pick them off, but there was also a chance the renegades were taken by surprise when Riptide stopped and had been too far ahead to prepare. It was worth the risk.

  “Forward, five strokes!” shouted Striiker from the diamondhead position in a pyramid formation after they ate. The day was sunny and nice. Too nice for so many sharks to swim the Sparkle Blue.

  There were attacks coming from below, so Striiker decided to move from their block shape to a pyramid with more mariners on the bottom. Any attacking makos would have to show their bellies to the Riptide mariners below them to strike the higher part of the pyramid formation.

  Because Hokuu might realize Mari was missing since he had seen her well during the attack on the Riptide homewaters, she had to stay. Gray swam with her, and they both kept an eye on Velenka. The mako stayed inside the path the guards allowed her to swim.

  “How do you think Velenka ended up, well, being Velenka?” Mari asked.

  This simple question puzzled Gray. “I don’t know. She couldn’t have been born bad. Could she?”

  Mari shook her head. “I don’t think anyone is born that way.”

  “Do you think it could have happened to us?” Gray wondered.

  The thresher’s sharp intake of water caused her to sputter. “No! Never!” Gray wasn’t so sure, and Mari saw this. “We’ve been through a lot, and we’re not like her. You’d never do the things she did, and I hope I wouldn’t, either.”

  “I’ve done plenty that I’m ashamed of,” Gray said. “Goblin offered me a home in his shiver and I betrayed him. I mean, if you think about it.”

  Mari shook her head vigorously. “No, you changed sides because he wasn’t a good fin,” she told him. “I don’t think Goblin was all evil, but his actions weren’t the ones of a good shark. You saw that and quit. Velenka went right on being a member of his shiver until she joined up with someone even worse.”

  Gray nodded. When he saw what Goblin was doing, how it was costing the lives of innocent sharkkind, he couldn’t swim that current. “I also betrayed everyone in Rogue Shiver. I left you, Striiker, Barkley, Snork, and Shell to go with Goblin. That’s not being very good.”

  “Then you came and saved us,” Mari reminded him. “That was.”

  “But the point is I chose the wrong current. And I believed I was doing the right thing. Maybe Velenka is just choosing badly.”

  Mari snorted. “She’s done that over and over, though. How many times do you ignore it?”

  “I don’t know,” Gray said truthfully.

  “Steady,” Striiker told everyone from the diamondhead, and the command was passed quietly along the ranks. They were approaching an area that was perfect for an ambush. There were towering cliffs on either side of their group, hemming them in. To swim over the mountain range would take too much time and divert them into a current pushing in the opposite direction.

  There was no telling if this was the area that Barkley had set their counter-ambush. It was too risky for a ghostfin to come back and tell everyone where they were hidden, so Gray and Striiker had decided against it. Hokuu was too smart and might notice. He could even turn the ambush against Riptide somehow.

  He might do that anyway, thought Gray.

  Striiker looked over for a second opinion whether they should continue between the two walls of rock. Gray nodded at the Riptide leader, and everyone advanced. The valley was long, and the jagged ranges funneled the current so that it pushed them along at a faster pace. Gray didn’t like this. Although a quick current would make the trip shorter, it also meant they would have trouble changing course if anything happened.

  But soon the mountain range dropped away and the greenie below became sparse. Gray could see no one was there. It looked like they were in the clear.

  That’s when the mako finja attacked from the sides and above.

  All of them.

  CHAPTER 26

  “HOLD POSITION UNTIL YOU SEE THEIR EYES!” Striiker shouted.

  It was chaos.

  The Riptide forces, both the scouts and main formation, were being attacked in at least twenty locations by multiple finja. There had to be at least a hundred renegades. Too late, Gray saw that the valley wasn’t a good ambush site. The attackers wouldn’t have any place to retreat to, even with their color-shifting abilities. But out in the open like they were now, the renegades blended with the water. When they did strike, it was lightning quick and almost impossible to spot.

  “Look out!” yelled Mari as a finja rushed Gray. But she was too far off to help. There was no time for a real defensive move, so Gray twisted to the side and whipped his massive tail around.

  Whap! A solid hit!

  Solid, but lucky. I’ll take it, thought Gray.

  A Riptide mariner struck the finja, and it spiraled toward the greenie, streaming blood. Many other attacks were succeeding, though. Riptide sharks screamed in agony as they swam the Sparkle Blue. Gray saved one hammerhead mariner from a finja by ramming it in the gills. That mako managed to retreat, but it wouldn’t be fighting again today.

  Striiker’s mariners had compressed their position to defend themselves, with even the scouts and the defensive screen joining his pyramid formation. The finja sensed victory and pressed their assault.

  It was a mistake. Their first one.

  And it couldn’t
have come at a better time.

  From their well-concealed positions, Barkley, Snork, and the rest of the ghostfins launched straight up, each doing a classic Spinner Strikes move. And from this angle they could see the renegades clearly! Viewed from underneath (against the backdrop of the sun-lightened chop-chop) the finja weren’t invisible: they were dark blue blotches against the lighter blue water.

  And even better, the makos didn’t expect an attack from below.

  Blood bloomed in the ocean around the besieged Riptide formation. And this time, it was the blood of mako finja! Part of the plan was to give each one a bite, even if an underside ram would be more effective. That way, the renegades would leak blood. And because of that, they weren’t invisible to the main force of Riptide mariners anymore.

  “Attack!” commanded Striiker. “Let’s show these chowderheads who we are!”

  “RIPTIIIIDE!” came the thundering response as sharkkind roared out in all directions wherever a stream of enemy blood was spotted. It was the biggest loss ever inflicted on the dangerous finja. Riptide had finally succeeded in getting the renegades to a massed fight and it was going their way!

  “Oh-ho-ho!” came a sprightly and impossibly loud voice that chilled Gray’s blood. “That was very sneaky! Retreat, my finja!”

  Hokuu appeared, swimming in a circle and creating a whirling vortex that scattered the Riptide mariners nearest him. The remaining prehistore makos raced past the frill and into the seething waters ahead. During the battle, the current had pushed everyone to the edge of the disputed lands, where Hokuu had been hiding all along.

  They had guessed correctly after all.

  Suddenly Shear and fifty guardians struck. It was only Hokuu’s lightning-fast reaction to blast them away with a powerful ball of energy that saved him.

  Gray rejoiced. Shear was here! That meant that Kaleth had sent her guardians! Deep down, she wasn’t hard-hearted!

  “Joining the party, too, eh? Well, you may have all found your way here, but there’s nothing you can do to stop me!” Hokuu screamed. With a wave of his tail, a shimmering barrier appeared, walling off the ocean ahead of Gray and everyone else. “You may as well swim back the way you came!”