The Battle of Riptide (11 page)

TYDAL WAS AFRAID TO TWITCH A FIN. Doing so might draw unwanted attention from the emperor, who hadn't stopped raging since he returned to his newly conquered homewaters. Usually, Tydal went with Finnivus on his swims outside of the royal court in order to serve him. However, when Finnivus traveled outside of the Indi Shiver homewaters, his wants and needs were under
squaline
authority, so Tydal had been dismissed by Finnivus and told to stay and “make this sad little place more befitting of an emperor!” That turned out to be a very good thing.

The emperor's party was gone for only a little while. During that time, Tydal ordered the colorful crabs and starfish forming their pleasing patterns to move and create other hopefully
more
pleasing patterns. But Finnivus returned too soon! The dwellers weren't nearly done, and Tydal couldn't give them instructions now. They were moving slowly—which was how all crabs and starfish moved, by the way—into the shapes he'd told them to form and, to Tydal's ears, were making too much noise! Finnivus hadn't noticed yet, so great was his anger.

“WHO IS THIS SHARK NAMED GRAY?” the emperor yelled. “Why wasn't he captured?”

None of the younglings from the Line spoke. Even Finnivus's new favorite shark, Velenka, didn't dare say anything right now. Tydal had no idea who this
Gray
was, but he did know the hunting party was supposed to capture him. Apparently, they hadn't. Finnivus hated when
anything
didn't turn out exactly the way he wanted. He just wasn't used to that.

The clicking and clacking racket made by the moving crabs and starfish was
deafening
! It would only take a moment of silence for Finnivus to hear it and be displeased. Tydal's insides rumbled, and sharp pains jolted him as if his stomach were being bitten from the inside. Perhaps the shrimp and crab here didn't agree with him.

“I've been betrayed!” Finnivus huffed. Then he caught his mistake and said, “I mean,
we've
been betrayed!”

Tydal was sure he was hearing things when a voice said, “Your majesty, no one betrayed you.”

But it was real! Someone had dared to speak!

Everyone looked toward the offending fin who had interrupted the emperor's royal tantrum.

Of course, it was Whalem.

The fool was going to get himself killed! Everything went dead silent. Even the crabs and starfish had the good sense to stop moving. Finnivus looked across the court from his position atop a blue whale hovering over Riptide Shiver's conquered Speakers Rock. It was built up with bright yellow and orange starfish the way he liked, and the terraced greenie behind Finnivus framed him impressively. That fact was unimportant now, though. The emperor's mouth hung open.

Finally he asked, “What?”

Whalem sighed. Tydal could see that Whalem was going to make the horrible mistake of speaking his mind, or worse—
explaining
why Finnivus was
wrong
!

Before Tydal knew what he was doing—for he definitely would
not
dare say a word if he were thinking correctly—he blurted, “Dinner is ready, Magnificence!”

Now everyone in the royal court looked at Tydal. No one could believe he had spoken, including a very surprised Whalem. The rebuke was swift and immediate, though. Finnivus roared, “Mention dinner again, and
you'll
be the main course! DO YOU UNDERSTAND?”

Tydal thrust his face down until he was groveling in the mud like the muck-sucker most of the court thought him to be. Thankfully, Finnivus turned his attention back to his mariner prime.

“What did you say?” the emperor asked. Even though Finnivus spoke in a whisper, everyone around the court could clearly hear him. If Whalem would only grovel a little, maybe the situation could be saved. But Whalem wasn't like Tydal. The tiger was first in the Line of Indi Shiver, mariner prime, and commander of the armada. He
never
groveled. Maybe that's why Tydal admired him.

“No one betrayed you, Finnivus. We were caught by surprise.”

The beautiful mako took this as an attack and hissed, “I said, ‘Be prepared'! I told you Gray was powerful and fast!”

A young spinner shark from the Line joined the fray—but carefully. “I remember Velenka saying this sharkkind was dangerous, but she didn't really make it clear just
how
dangerous. And Whalem, why didn't you take better precautions?”

It wasn't Whalem's fault, thought Tydal as he pressed his snout deeper in the mud. He'd overheard this part of the discussion before the group had left. Whalem had wanted to take a full battle fin, a hundred sharkkind, but Finnivus wouldn't hear of it. The emperor proclaimed that no one could stand against even a single Indi Shiver mariner. Then Whalem convinced Finnivus that it would be much more regal to have a cohort of
squaline
around himself to show off his greatness as well as a few dozen mariners. It was, all in all, a very skillful way of bending the emperor's will to his own. Their lack of proper guard was actually Finnivus's fault, but no one would be foolhardy enough to bring that up.

No one except Whalem, apparently. “I wanted to bring along a battle fin,” the old tiger reminded the emperor, speaking to him as if he were an errant school fish!

“So you're saying I—
WE
—made a mistake?”

“How dare you, Whalem?” sputtered another pup from the Line. “How dare you accuse the emperor of such a thing?”

Whalem turned to the pup. “Shut your cod hole before I rip off your tail and feed it to you.” Then he looked back at the emperor.

“Your Majesty,” Whalem began. He looked tired to Tydal. “We are currently many leagues from our own Indi Ocean. We're not in our homewaters and do not know the territory. One large and fast sharkkind surprised us. When that happens it is our duty—my duty—to make sure you are protected first and foremost.”

Whalem had totally ignored the emperor's question! That, in and of itself, was a grave crime. However, here was a chance for Finnivus to swim right by this whole ugly scene—if he would only take it, everything could go back to normal!

But the wicked young pups of the Line would never let an opportunity like this wriggle away from them. One insisted, “Answer the emperor's question, Whalem! Are you saying he made a mistake?”

“Yes, answer the question!” added another.

Whalem gave the pups a look that might have killed two lesser sharks where they hovered. “No battle plans survive first contact—”

The emperor laughed in his tittering high-pitched way. “Are you saying this was a battle? One shark?”

“It turned into a battle, Finnivus.”

“STOP CALLING ME FINNIVUS! I am the emperor! Emperor of the entire Big Blue! You are nothing but an old, krillfaced, jelly-brained drifter that my father should have gotten rid of a long time ago!”

Whalem's fins trembled, his rage barely under control. For a moment, he said nothing, but then he erupted, “Your father would be ashamed of you! You act like a spoiled pup! YOU'RE A DISGRACE!”

There was absolute silence.

The word
disgrace
seemed to echo through the waters of the court. No one dared move or even breathe. Tydal expected Whalem to be sent to the Sparkle Blue on the spot.

But Finnivus didn't rage. He seemed relieved. Tydal guessed it was because the emperor could finally get rid of Whalem. Regardless of the reason, Finnivus didn't yell.

“You are no longer my first, Whalem. I remove you from my Line. I strip you of command of the armada, as well as the title of mariner prime. You are nothing to me now.” Finnivus settled onto Speakers Rock and ordered the commander of the
squaline
, “Take him into custody, but do not harm him.
We
will decide when royal justice shall be served.”

“I TOLD YOU IT WAS A TRAP AND STILL, YOU WENT,” Takiza huffed.

“For the tenth time—I'm sorry!” Gray said, raising his voice because he had to, not because he was being disrespectful. They were heading down into the deep open ocean, and it was hard to speak unless you yelled. The words seemed to get sucked back into Gray's throat unless he really spoke up. The fact that they were swimming away from Coral Shiver and his friends didn't help his mood.

After a few hard days of exercises and drills, Gray and Takiza swam past the Maw and toward the Atlantis Spine. To Gray's surprise, they didn't stop there but headed up and over the towering undersea mountains of the Spine. The mountains forming the Spine were awe-inspiring. Their majestic greenie-covered crags contained caverns that a fin could get lost in for days. Once over the mountain range, the two swam heading down, down, down. They were deeper than the training grounds, in an area Takiza called the Azores.

“You should strive to keep your mouth closed and listen, Nulo! It is the only way you will learn.” Takiza turned to see if he would say anything. Gray was so tired he couldn't muster the effort. They had been swimming for days. Was it days? He couldn't tell. There was very little light in the depths so near the Dark Blue.

“Your indescribably bad judgment has forced us on this journey sooner than I would have liked. Sooner than you are ready. See how you gasp and struggle? This could have been avoided—had you not angered the pup emperor.”

Gray mumbled, “Sorry!” once more, but the ocean depths pressed the word back into his throat.

The frilly fish continued thinking out loud to himself. “Perhaps it's time. Perhaps your bumbling foolishness is, in a way, the current of destiny moving us. Who knows? Sometimes we are carried where the water wills, no matter our wishes.”

“Okay, that sounded very important,” Gray said with an effort. “Can you tell me what it means?” He sounded silly shouting when the gauzy-finned betta swam just a tail length in front of him.

Takiza looked at him crossly. “Everything I say is important, Nulo, or I wouldn't bother saying it. Watch and listen. Only then can you learn.”

Gray struggled as they crested the lip of the mountain range. He had to swallow several times before he could ask, “
What
is that?”

“That is the Atlantean capital, which the humans who lived there before it was sunk called Poseidous.” Takiza dipped low into one of the evenly spaced valleys. These valleys weren't like the craggy areas between hills or mountains.
These
were perfectly smooth. While they were made of rock—Gray checked by slapping a tail against the one they were swimming through—the valleys were slippery to the touch. The channels
cut
into these rocks—or were the rocks piled upward to form the channels?—caught the current perfectly, and made it very easy to swim. Greenie and coral had grown everywhere, but Gray could see humans—
giant
humans—between squarish caves that might be living spaces. The large guardians stood perfectly still as if waiting for unwary prey to swim close.

At the center of the landshark homewaters, there was one immense human guiding six rearing animals, which seemed like the landshark versions of sea horses, with legs instead of fins and tails. The human held a gigantic weapon. It was much scarier than a spine shooter and had three massive prongs, each ending in barbs like the hooks he had seen humans use to catch fish. But how could the human stand so still? And how could it breathe underwater? Gray was sure landsharks couldn't stay underwater very long without cans of air on their backs.

Takiza saw him staring and chuckled. “It's a statue. A stone carving.” He pointed with his fin to another grouping of these statues. “Humans liked chipping images of themselves into rock in the old days.”

“Humans were much bigger in the old days!”

Takiza laughed. “No, they made the statues bigger to scare other landsharks away.”

Gray looked around at a landshark version of Speakers Rock. It was a shallow bowl with rows of ridges rising upward. The ridges were covered with greenie also, but Gray could tell there was the same type of smooth rock underneath. “How come no one ever mentioned this? I don't think Goblin knew, even though he told me stories about the Atlanteans.”

“It's difficult for most sharkkind to swim this deep,” Takiza told him. “It took weeks to train you, didn't it?”

Gray nodded. The landshark city was so fantastic, he had forgotten his difficulty breathing. It was hard to imagine that the same humans who flailed around in the ocean and had to use nets to catch their meals could build something like this. The humans Gray knew were dumb, fouling the very waters they fed from, but had to be respected because they were also extremely dangerous. “So why are we here?” he asked.

“Again you question me?” Takiza shook his head. He muttered to himself as he circled a thick strand of greenie and then smacked it with his fin. Gray then saw it wasn't a strand of greenie, but a landshark rope. It hit the metal surrounding it, which was in the shape of a jellyfish, and made a
BONNNNNNGGGggggggg
sound that vibrated through the water in all directions.

Gray wanted badly to ask what that strange noise-making device was but had an answer soon enough when other sharks swam into view. He remembered that the object was called a
bell
. Landsharks used it to call others or warn of danger, but sharkkind could also hear its vibrations. Many came over, including a massive great white, almost as large as Gray, who was a golden color.

Could it be? thought Gray.

The golden great white's booming voice cried out, “Takiza! What are you doing here so soon?”

The betta introduced the new shark. “He is why we are here. Gray, this is Lochlan boola Naka Fiji, leader of the AuzyAuzy Shiver and the rightful king of the Sific.”

“Lochlan . . .” Gray muttered with displeasure. So this was Takiza's favorite apprentice. Gray had to admit, the great white was impressive, especially with that striking coloring. He was a good four feet larger than Striiker, which made him a foot bigger than Goblin used to be. Lochlan grinned in a friendly way, but Gray wasn't feeling very pleasant remembering all the times Takiza had mentioned this shark during training.

“What's the matter?” Lochlan asked, catching the sour look on Gray's face. “Did you eat a bad haddock? Stay away from the ones with yellowy eyes.”

Gray shook his head. He shouldn't prejudge this shark. “It's nothing. Nice to finally meet Takiza's favorite student.”

“That will be enough speaking from you, Nulo,” Takiza said.

Lochlan's eyes widened. He burst out laughing, waggling his fins up and down. “Is that what Takiza's been telling you?
I
was his favorite? Well, nice to finally do something right for once, eh?”

Takiza ruffled his own frilly fins in an odd way. Gray hadn't seen him do anything quite like it before. Then he understood the fleeting look on the betta's face. It was a touch of
embarrassment.

“Wait a second,” Gray began. “You weren't his prize student?”

This sent Lochlan into gales of laughter. “Prize student? He said I was his worst apprentice ever! He would always mention another finner named Ranier, who I absolutely
hated
after my first week! It was always, ‘If only you could be more like Ranier, your training would be quicker' and ‘Ranier never snapped even one coral spire,' things like that, over and over.”

“Oh,
reeeeeeally
,” said Gray, giving Takiza a long look.

The little betta chopped his fins imperiously. “I only mentioned Lochlan to compare him at the
end
of his training—when I was finally able to teach him a few things—to you at the
beginning
of your training. Respectively, you two chowderheaded lumpfish are
tied
for being the
worst
apprentices I've ever had.”

Both Gray and Lochlan laughed as Takiza ruffled his frilly fins again.

The massive great white nodded after catching his breath. “Gray, any friend of Takiza's is a friend of mine. And call me Loch.”

“Okay, Loch,” Gray answered. “Nice to meet you.”

It was safe to say Gray liked Lochlan at once.

“Let me intro you to some of my Line. These are three of the fins I count on to tell me when I'm about to make a tail bender of a decision!”

“Which is often!” said a pretty whitetip reef shark. “My name is Kendra and I'm Loch's first.”

Gray nodded and said hello, then found a smiling scalloped hammerhead grinning at him. “Xander del Hav'aii, call me Xander. I'm third.”

Gray was slapped on the flank, hard. A small girl tiger shark said, “G'day! Name's Jaunt, and I'm fifth in Line of AuzyAuzy, which is kinda like being the smallest biter in the wet-wet. Sorry about not bringin' a prezzy, but we didn't know we wuz gonna yabber-jabber with you today.”

Gray nodded nervously at Jaunt and then looked to the rest of the AuzyAuzy line, who seemed amused at his discomfort. “Umm, what language is she speaking? I understood about half.”

“Too right!” yelled Lochlan as everyone laughed. “You got most of us beat, then! We hardly understand
anything
she says!”

Jaunt looked pained and flicked her tail. “Aww, come on! I'm no squiddily kelpie from the boonie-greenie! Maybe you guys should learn to speak proper like me!”

“Boonie-greenie!” Gray exclaimed. “I know that! But what's a squiddily kelpie?”

Everyone laughed again, even Jaunt this time. She slapped him on the flank and said, “
You're
a squiddily kelpie, ya big beauty!”

They spoke long into the night. Lochlan had lost his father and many friends when Finnivus had attacked. The golden great white grew sad telling the story. Lochlan's father had been a peace-loving ruler and was missed by everyone. The AuzyAuzy forces were currently scattered, but the rest were regrouping with Lochlan's second and fourth in Line until he would lead them back to their homewaters. That had been delayed when Takiza asked him to come here.

Lochlan turned to Takiza. “So why bring this one sharkkind—what kind of shark are you, anyway?

“Umm—”

“He's a rare type of reef shark,” Takiza told everyone. The betta had sworn Gray to secrecy about being a megalodon. He was to tell
no one
else.

“Good on ya,” Jaunt said.

Now Kendra, the whitetip, spoke. “Gray seems like he could hold his own in a scuffle, for sure. But why just bring one fin to this fight?”

Now it was Takiza's turn to chuckle. “Oh, Gray is not here to join you,” he said. “I would like
you
to join
him
and repel Finnivus from the North Atlantis.”

For a moment no one said a word.

Then Jaunt gave Gray another tail slap to the flank. “Good on ya, twice!”