The Last Emprex (6 page)

Gray thought it through. The mariners would be better prepared for the day they had to swim out into the battle waters. The knowledge would help them stay alive. It would be foolish to stop that.

But to train pups for war? What did that make Gray? He felt like a monster.

“Don't stop, but Riprap and Ebbie aren't allowed to join.”

“
Whaaat?
” sputtered Ebbie. “That's totally unfair! You can't have one rule for everyone else and a different one for us!”

This was an excellent point. But Gray couldn't care less. His brother and sister would be protected.

“Oh, yes I can,” he said, feeling a bit ashamed at his childish tone. “Because I'm the Seazarein.”

“We thought you were cool, Gray,” said Riprap, shaking his head in disappointment. “You're the worst big brother ever!”

Sandy gave Riprap a tap to the belly. “Say you're sorry this instant! Both of you.”

There were grumbled apologies and they all had a group rub before Riprap and Ebbie went off to the rest area. Gray headed to the throne cavern, where a mountain of work was waiting for him. Mostly all he could think about was that Riprap and Ebbie were getting old enough to fight and fully expected to do so.

It is sad that all they know is war, Gray thought. They hardly even got to be pups.

CHAPTER 7

SNORK AND THE OTHER BLADEFISH WERE
hidden in a series of greenie-covered caves off the coast of the Spain landmass. This was on the other side of the Atlantis Spine from where the Tuna Run happened and far from where Snork had made his home with Riptide Shiver. He had left Gray and the others to become a bladefish. His training had been hard, but Salamanca, his blue marlin master, had taught him well. And Snork was great at being a bladefish! He could now do things with his bill that he would have thought were impossible a few short months ago.

Tension tingled in his belly. He would need all of his new skills if he was going to survive the day. They had received word of a jurassic raiding party and set a trap. The frilled sharks and mosasaurs here were few in number, but powerful and ruthless. They had destroyed three shivers already, sending all their mariners and shiver sharkkind—even the pups—to the Sparkle Blue. Grimkahn had sent these marauders everywhere to cause confusion and destruction.

It was working.

Snork and the other bladefish had kept their snouts in the seabed for more than a day in the Galacia Shiver homewaters. Waiting was terrible. The Galacia shiver sharks were hiding, but their mariners, two and a half battle fins worth, kept a loose formation in the waters above.

The plan was for the Galacia mariners to engage the jurassics and then the bladefish squadron would attack from below. This wasn't Snork's first battle but it would be his first using his new skills. His stomach lurched and rumbled. It had been doing that a lot lately. Snork didn't want to let anyone down. What if he forgot everything he learned?

Stop thinking like that! he told himself.

The bladefish were a noble crew. Though there were only seventy here, it was still the largest group of the special fins in one place in over a hundred years. Bladefish fought for justice and tried not to take sides. They were a secret organization and didn't like attention. Well, most didn't. His master, Salamanca, kind of did.

One of the surprising things Snork discovered was that most bladefish weren't even sharkkind! They were
dwellers
: marlins, swordfish, spearfish, and sailfish. Bladefish could be any fin or flipper with a bill. And it didn't matter if your bill was flat and edged, like his own, or pointy like Salamanca's. There were even narwhal whales with them. Those lived almost exclusively in the Arktik waters. One of the narwhals was quite a character indeed.

Aleeyoot was his name and he was an awesome sight. He was twenty feet long and mottled brown, black, and white with a shimmering green cast all over. His most striking feature was a nine-foot tusk coming out from what looked to be his forehead but was really his upper jaw. The tusk, or tooth, spiraled straight out and was made of ivory. It looked thin and delicate compared to Salamanca's sturdy bill, but Snork had seen the narwhal cut through a block of coral so dense it could have been rock.

Aleeyoot and Salamanca were the undisputed leaders of the bladefish. The only thing was that they didn't seem to like each other. In training they would go out of their way to correct each other's slightest mistakes. And they argued about everything!

Snork saw Salamanca waggle his bill to get his group's attention. The colorful lures in the bottom of his mouth clacked together softly. Salamanca told Snork that he had actually chosen the landshark lures that he wanted as decorations and hooked
himself
to steal them, breaking the line afterward to take his prize. The sharp hooks pierced the side of his mouth and were evenly spaced. Each hook had a colorful, foot-long lure hanging from it. One lure was of a glittering marlin, the second a row of colorful beads, and the third and newest, a carving of a curvy human wearing a skirt with a wreath on her head. Her hands moved back and forth with the current. “See? She dances for me!” Salamanca had told Snork before he took it. How did he even know the landshark was a
girl
?

Sometimes Snork wondered about Salamanca.

But not now . . .

The jurassics were coming.

There was a commotion above as the Galacia mariners got into their formation. Striiker would have yelled something fierce at those sharks. They weren't steady in their ranks and their pyramid formation listed to the left. At least the commander noticed and was trying to fix it.

The jurassics materialized out of the gloom.

They didn't even try for the element of surprise, the mosasaurs letting out screeching roars, eager for battle. The sound was terrifying, but the frilled sharks scared him even more. They moved through the water with an eel's grace and looked like a pup's bad dream. Though Snork had won a fight against a frill at the Battle of the Spine, he still had nightmares about the monster's mouthful of bristling, tri-pointed teeth and its spiked tail.

The square formation was bigger than Galacia's even though the jurassics had far fewer fighters. The five mosasaurs were gigantic! How could sharkkind mariners hope to bite deep enough to do any real damage? That was why the bladefish were here. Hopefully their bills would succeed where shark's teeth had failed. They had to!

“Steady . . . hold . . . ” said Salamanca in a low whisper.

The two armadas crashed into each other!

Within a fin flick sharkkind from Galacia Shiver began spiraling down, some bitten in half, others spiked through the head or gills.

It was horrible.

Salamanca took a deep breath and was about to order them to move when—

“ATTACK!” was shouted from their left by Aleeyoot.

That side of their hidden force sprang upward while the end Snork was on did nothing.

Salamanca shouted, “The fool! Go! Go!”

Snork and the right side of the hidden group shot toward the bellies of the mosasaurs and frills above them. Grimkahn's forces didn't think to look down. Maybe they didn't fear anything that swam in the Big Blue. Maybe they were overconfident. Snork and the rest caught up with Aleeyoot and the others before they reached the bottom of the jurassic formation and struck as one.

It was devastatingly effective.

Though the bladefish were few in number, they were all very skilled.

Snork was the least experienced out of everyone and he chopped a frilled shark in half with his bill. Yes, he had learned things: wonderful and terrible things. Snork wished he could use his bill only to enter contests with other bladefish to see who could cut fastest, or with the most precision. He loved those and actually won a few between training sessions.

But he was also trained to be deadly with his bill when needed.

And against the jurassics it was needed.

Bladefish had a code where they would not swim away from evil. They swam toward it, faced it, and sent it to the Sparkle Blue. The jurassics and frilled sharks had proven themselves evil. They could not be allowed to swim on.

The battle was chaos.

Snork's senses sharpened so that they seemed to scratch the inside his skull. He could hear everything: the screams of the dying, the ripping of flesh. He could smell the blood in the water, even the different taste of each species. The sharp vibrations caused by the frantic brawl pattered against his hide from all directions.

Something was behind him!

He knew it wasn't a fellow bladefish.

There was ill intent coming with it.

Snork acted on instinct and whirled.

He sliced diagonally through a frilled shark's head. The frill blinked the eye still attached to his head in surprise before Snork ended his life with a stroke through its neck.

Two of the mosasaurs lay on the seabed, unmoving. Another thrashed in agony, three of its fins cut off by bladefish bills. It was surely headed toward the Sparkle Blue.

Salamanca shouted as he chopped and stabbed his way through the frills between himself and another mosasaur. “Out of Salamanca's way! You are not a challenge. You!” he shouted at a mosasaur, pointing with his bill. “Ugly, large thing! Come! Salamanca would fight you!”

The mosasaur roared and flippered his bulk straight at Salamanca. The big blue marlin dodged its snapping jaws—once, twice, three times! Salamanca dove underneath the mosasaur and sliced the creature from throat to belly with his bill.

“Crude and slow, prehistore,” Salamanca said to his dying opponent as he sank. “Your attack was no better than that of a clumsy pup.”

But the marlin didn't notice that the last mosasaur was heading straight for him!

“LOOK OUT!” cried Snork.

Salamanca barely avoided the strike as the jurassic's jaws thundered together.

From out of nowhere, Aleeyoot drove his nine-foot tusk straight through the mosasaur's eye. The beast stopped in the water, one of its clawed flippers jerking violently.

Then it was still.

Aleeyoot let the mosasaur slip from his tusk. “And that's three, my friend.”

Salamanca bristled. “This did not count! Salamanca's life was no more in danger than if he were on a leisurely swim in the calmest of lagoons.”

“Nyet! No! Nein!” disagreed Aleeyoot. “How many different ways do you want it said? You were chum and I saved you! Say it! Three times I've saved your life! Which is one more than you, who has only saved my life a puny two times. Say it!”

Salamanca sighed. “Three. But only because you swam off before my signal! You caused Salamanca distress and this led to a lack of concentration.”

The narwhal crossed his tusk with Salamanca's bill. “If you weren't sleeping, I wouldn't have had to leave without you!” He smacked the marlin's bill with his horn and got deflected hard for his effort. They closed on each other.

“Salamanca grows tired of your overly big mouth and wishes to shut it.”

“Maybe Salamanca should try that and see what happens,” said Aleeyoot.

“Umm, hello?” interrupted Snork before the two began fighting. “We won. Isn't that what's important? Maybe both of you great bladefish could concentrate on that?”

The two separated, both looking at Snork. Aleeyoot nodded. “Not a bad apprentice. Smarter than you, but that's not an overly large compliment.” Aleeyoot swam off but before he left the area he yelled, “THREE!”

The marlin shook his head. “Salamanca is very annoyed, oh mighty Snork. Very annoyed, indeed.” The big marlin gave him a wink. “But you are right. We did win.” Then Salamanca waggled the lures in his mouth and said, “See? She dances for our victory.”