The Battle of Riptide (2 page)

TAKIZA JAELYNN BETTA VAM DELACREST Waveland ka Boom Boom shook his fins from side to side to get some feeling back into them. With his powers, in his youth, he could circle the entire world in a little over a moon, or a month, as the humans called it. But that was many, many years ago. Now, even a fraction of that effort was a chore. Yet when he received word of what had happened from a quickfin messenger, he knew he must come.

Quickfin was the exclusive news and messaging service for the Big Blue. It was usually reserved for communications and diplomacy between the ancient shivers. Because Takiza shared a long and colorful history with many of these great shivers, he was one of those who received word of the major happenings in the seas.

And make no mistake, the destruction of a royal shiver like AuzyAuzy was a major event.

Takiza had decided to begin training his new apprentice, an interesting young sharkkind named Gray. He was a mere pup, large and inexperienced, only now coming into focus. It would take much effort to mold him into a fin of worth. Sometimes Takiza wondered why he even bothered attempting to pass on his knowledge of shar-kata. Apprentices were forever whining and exclaiming things like, “That's not possible!” or “You want me to do
what
?” and even “But that could kill me!”

So immature.

Using shar-kata, Takiza was able to harness the power in the tides and currents to swim at a rate others might call magical. It wasn't, of course. Mastery of the upper levels of shar-kata bestowed these gifts on the few who could master the supreme effort and concentration required. Thankfully, Takiza hadn't lost his abilities just yet, despite his age. He swam down the Atlantis and crossed the canal the humans dug as a shortcut to the Sific Ocean. Humans had a few good ideas—the canal between oceans being one of them. After braving the foul-tasting waters behind a massive ship, Takiza caught a swift current that took him into the South Sific, past the Australia landmass, and into Oceania where the AuzyAuzy homewaters were.

Were
. But not anymore.

The light green-greenie swayed in the slow, warm current as the surviving dwellers drifted in a fearful daze. Unspeakable evil had been done here. From what Takiza could gather, AuzyAuzy had been destroyed by Indi Shiver, another ancient and royal power, originating from the Indi Ocean. King Lochlan I, leader of AuzyAuzy, now swam the Sparkle Blue, having been killed in the attack. What had possessed these two regal shivers to fight like the brawling gangs that now inhabited the Atlantis? Takiza needed answers.

Not wanting to cause a commotion, he decided to speak with the king's son alone. Slipping by the guards and into the cave was easy for him. “Greetings, Prince Lochlan boola Naka Fiji,” said Takiza.

To his credit the prince—now the new king—did not start, though Takiza had swum up to him unannounced and undetected. This frightened most sharkkind, who thought their senses fine-tuned.

“Takiza?” The massive great white turned so they could speak face-to-face. Lochlan II projected both grace and power. He was the perfect representation of his kind and the spitting image of his father as a young shark, complete with the telltale golden hue that marked him as AuzyAuzy royalty.

“Your manners are impeccable, young one. But tell me, how are you?”

“Been better.” The words hung there. Lochlan's stunning gold skintone sparkled, even in the dim light. The coloring was unique to his great white family and gave the shiver its nickname, the Golden Rush. “You know Father is dead? The homewaters smashed? Of course, you know. You know everything.”

“Not everything,” Takiza replied.

Lochlan launched into the story without emotion. “Finnivus came with his floating court. I should have noticed there were too many. We went to hunt off the edge of our homewaters, and they turned on us. Their entire armada was waiting. There were just too many.”

Takiza pretended not to notice the tears leaking from Lochlan's eyes. It wasn't his intention to shame the fin. “It is your right to grieve, Lochlan.”

“NO!” the golden great white roared. A sleek whitetip reef shark poked her head through the greenie curtain that Takiza had snuck through, and he yelled, “I'm all right! Privacy, please!”

She darted away and Lochlan went on in a lower voice. “Finnivus and Indi Shiver have to pay! I can get in touch with my feelings later.”

“Blood for blood only serves to foul the water,” Takiza said. “Your father knew that.”

So this was Finnivus's doing. The tiger shark King Finnivus was vain and cruel. That Lochlan had bested him in every contest and hunt the few times they had met when they were pups was a sore point with the Indi tiger. Takiza had hoped Finnivus would grow out of such stupidity and become a good leader. The cold feeling in the pit of his stomach told him this hope was now dead.

Lochlan ground his triangular teeth. “Will you help us? We attack tomorrow.”

Takiza winced inside as he saw a sizable gash on the golden great white's side, most likely from the battle. It had been expertly stitched by a doctor and surgeon fish from Lochlan's shiver.

“Absolutely not,” Takiza answered with a shake of his gauzy fins. Lochlan stiffened until Takiza added, “But only because you will lose if you act so soon.”

“Then we go down fighting. That's the way Father would have—”

Takiza slashed his fins in front of Lochlan's left eye so the great white would be sure to see. “Do not put words in your father's mouth he would
not
actually say! Your father would want you to protect your shivermates, not lead them to their deaths!”

Lochlan quieted and after a moment asked, “What would you have me do?”

“Leave the Sific.”

“WHAT?” Lochlan yelled so loudly that the whitetip reef shark poked her head inside once more.

“Is everything—”

“Kendra! Please!” exclaimed Lochlan, and she left quickly. “My first,” he told Takiza, which was explanation enough. The new king sighed. “Okay, swim that by me again.”

“I would like you to leave this ocean for now. You are the rightful king of the Sific and cannot throw your life away.”

Lochlan churned his tail from side to side in agitation. “Do
not
call me that! My father was the king.”

“As you wish,” Takiza told him.

“I won't swim away from my problems, Takiza. I won't. Finnivus ate my father after the attack. Thank Tyro Mum wasn't alive to see that. You ask too much.”

Finnivus
ate
Lochlan I! Takiza's mind reeled. It was something out of the barbarian age. He struggled to hold his own emotions in check. “I am not asking you to swim
away
from your problems. I am asking you to swim
toward
an opportunity. Leave your forces behind and come with a select few.”

“Will this opportunity involve a chance to take a fin from that vain and evil fish Finnivus?”

Takiza sighed. “Unfortunately, yes. I believe so.”

With that, Lochlan nodded grimly. He swam out of the cave and began giving orders.

“YOUR PRIVATE CAVE IS READY,” SAID THE LIONFISH, one of the hosts for Slaggernacks. Even for a lionfish, she was stunning with her vibrant purple-and-blue stripes. But underneath those colorful fins were razor-sharp spines that could inject poison into an unsuspecting victim. “Do you have something for me?” she asked.

Gray was carrying a bonefish he had caught earlier, and now he ejected it from his mouth. This one was barely two feet long, but bonefish were highly prized and could be seasoned well, which is what they did at Slaggernacks. The place could earn up to six or even eight fish from someone who had a craving for bonefish but was too slow to catch one. That was how Slaggernacks made a profit and kept themselves fed.

“Very nice,” said the hostess as she looked over the bonefish. “There's a swell band playing tonight if you're staying around.”

“Why don't you show us to our cave?” asked Mari pointedly.

The hostess sniffed but did as requested. After the lionfish left them at the cave entrance, Mari grumbled, “I really hate this place.” She swished her long thresher's tail in annoyance and caught Gray watching. “What?” she asked.

Gray completely lost his current of thought. “Um, other than searching the entire Big Blue, there's no better place to find information about Coral Shiver, and that's why we're here.” His mother, Sandy, was the third in Line for Coral, so she would be with the shiver. Or someone from the shiver would know if . . . Gray shook the thought from his mind.

When he had last seen his mother, she was alive and well, and there was no reason to think otherwise. Gray missed her terribly. Frustratingly, neither Barkley nor he had seen a single sign of anyone from Coral Shiver since their epic fight with Goblin Shiver at the Tuna Run.

As if reading his mind, Mari said, “If Goblin, Razor, or someone from their shivers, sees us . . .” she trailed off, not needing to say anything else.

Their miraculous escape from Goblin and Razor Shivers at the Tuna Run was now the stuff of legends in the North Atlantis. Of course, that would be the case when the mythic Siamese fighting fish Takiza showed up and caused some sort of glowing whirlpool disturbance to suck up Goblin and his shiver, tossing them away like minnows in a strong current.

“That's why we're using the back area of Slaggernacks,” Gray told her. “So we won't be seen.”

There were several private caves set apart from the greenie-covered main area. That area was more of a
restaurant
—that was a landshark word—with plenty of areas to hover and eat seasoned fish. When Gray had first tried seasoned fish, he'd hated it, but now he enjoyed it more and more. And there was entertainment from various dweller singing groups. The best ones featured whales and dolphins, although there was a sea horse chorus called
Sea Horsing Around
that Gray liked very much. Gray wondered again how Gafin had thought up the idea for creating Slaggernacks.

Gafin was the king of the sea urchins and used Slaggernacks as his home base of operations for his tidal pool of murky dealings. It was hard to picture entire shivers of sharkkind listening to a sea urchin, but Gafin controlled thousands of poisonous dwellers. The toxic gang included stonefish, octos, lionfish, jellies, and many others who could send even the biggest fin to the Sparkle Blue. After all, you couldn't be on guard every second of every day.

Although no one ever actually saw Gafin, both Razor and Goblin Shivers respected the truce he demanded from anyone who swam in his territory.

This particular back cave had a crisp and cold current that made it easy to breathe. The secluded greenie-hidden back caves were guarded by poisonous dwellers who protected the safety of those inside and guaranteed their privacy. Supposedly.

“Oww!” Gray muttered under his breath. He had hit his head on the roof of the entrance to the cave. Barkley would have told him his head was getting fatter for sure. Would he ever stop growing? Mari pretended not to notice his embarrassment. Gray liked that about her.

“The dwellers here can't be trusted,” Mari said. “What if someone tells Goblin we're here? Or Velenka?”

Gray's mind involuntarily pictured the beautiful and sinister mako shark.

Velenka . . .

She was Goblin's fifth, guiding his fins as if she were swimming for him. She was the one who had told Gray he was a megalodon. She wanted Gray to rule as a figurehead after getting rid of Goblin and Razor. In fact, Goblin still didn't know that Velenka had planned to betray him right after she had dealt with Razor. Gray was certain he would have been the next to swim the Sparkle Blue after those two.

“Youse wouldn't be meanin' me, would youse?” A random rock in the cave floated off the fine-grained sandy bottom. It wasn't a rock, of course. It was a stonefish named Trank. Mari involuntarily recoiled and moved back. The urge to get away from the poisonous fish was strong in the enclosed cave, even for a shark. Trank worked for Gafin, but would never point him out. “Gafin likes to keep a low profile,” was the greenie-covered fish's standard answer.

“Of course not, Trank,” Mari answered. “You're the most trustworthy stonefish I know.”

“Well, thanks—hey, wait a second, how many stonefish do youse know?”

Gray waved a fin at the stonefish. “That's not important.”

“It is to me!” huffed Trank. “Us stonefish are very loyal. We stick by our deals, unlike youse sharkkind.” The stonefish gave them a knowing look. Velenka had double-crossed Trank and put him in prison with Barkley, Mari, Shell, and Snork. That was how they'd met in the first place.

“Unbelievable!” Mari said, swishing her tail back and forth. “Well, I'm not sticking up for Velenka, so you have me there.”

“There you go,” Gray told the stonefish. “She admits you're more trustworthy than Velenka.”

“That's
not
what I meant,” grumbled Mari.

“No take backs!” Trank shouted and whirled his fins in a way to signal the end of this particular current in the conversation. Mari wanted to continue her argument with the cantankerous fish, but Gray gave her a pleading look and she quieted.

“What have you found out?”

Now Trank seemed embarrassed. Mari leapt into the silence. “Nothing! Again.”

The stonefish's small fins circled furiously but then drooped. “You're right. And when you're right, you're right. And you're right.”

“Coral Shiver was at the Tuna Run,” Gray told the stonefish, his voice rising a little as he slapped the rough wall of the cavern with his tail. “How can no one know anything about an entire shiver?”

“The shiver youse came from was small, and the Big Blue's mighty big—hence the qualifying first part of its name, which is
big.
”

“Now's not the time for joking,” Mari scolded.

“Who's joking?” Trank replied. “Gafin takes a contract seriously. We're tracking down leads but comin' up empty. I actually think that's a good thing.”

“How would that be a good thing?” asked Gray, a bit annoyed. He had been dropping off a steady stream of fish at Slaggernacks for payment and was tired from hunting around the clock to both feed himself and pay the huge number of fish that Gafin demanded in exchange for his help finding Coral Shiver.

“If we can't find 'em, neither can anyone else,” Trank told Gray. “They're smart enough to keep their snouts in the greenie while Razor and Goblin fight it out.”

Gray flicked his pectoral fins in frustration. The stonefish did have a point, but it didn't make him feel any better.

Trank chewed on a piece of greenie hanging off his upper lip. He really did look like a sandy stone come to life. “Look, Gafin told me to tell youse he's sorry and youse can ease up on the fish for a while. We'll keep looking, free of charge.”

“Really?” Mari asked in wonder.

“Youse don't have to say it that way,” Trank replied. “Makes us look bad not being able to find a shiver from the boonie-greenie. Why, just yesterday, I swam twenty miles to personally track down a lead I knew was a bunch of chowder, but I went anyway. I mean, whoever heard of a sea dragon named Yappy who never stops talkin' and brags about giant cousins who live down in the Dark Blue?”