The Battle of Riptide

by EJ Altbacker

  “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.

  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 b
asically 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.