Shark Wars (7 page)

THE FORMER MEMBERS OF ROGUE SHIVER SWAM
into their new homewaters at moonrise. It wasn't like the Coral Shiver reef or the landshark ship, which relied on greenie to hide their location. This wasn't hidden at all. Since ancient times this shiver had been an unquestioned power in the North Atlantis, and their location was well-known in the Big Blue. Gray wondered aloud why the shiver didn't just move if they were being attacked.

“So we can move from one place to the next like jelly drifters?” Goblin asked, shaking his massive head from side to side. “My shiver has claimed this territory from the time of Tyro. We're going nowhere.”

“That's truer than you know,” muttered Mari. Both Striiker and Barkley stifled their snorts.

Goblin didn't hear, or he pretended not to hear, and continued, “Besides, don't you think this place is worth fighting for?” The great white said the last as they swam over the crest of a hill, which revealed a massive, sloping cliff face that glittered with different colored greenie, each on a separate terrace. The greenie was grown and tended this way! Incredible! The entire Coral Shiver reef could have easily fit inside a small portion of this place. At the floor of the cliff, long greenie grew in thick strands that were forever scrubbing the lower crags, flowing back and forth with the currents. The expanse in front of the cliffs where the shiver-gathering area was located was even larger, with huge pylons of rock and coral. There were whales here! And schools of giant manta rays! Both Gray and Barkley's mouths hung open in wonder.

“I think I just swallowed a tooth,” Barkley whispered.

Gray nodded to his friend. “You and me both.”

“Wow,” said Snork, waggling his serrated nose as he looked this way and that. Barkley dodged the dangerous snout and decided to move a body length away. The sawfish had ended up coming with them. Gray was glad for that. Snork was a genuinely good fish. Striiker and Mari, having seen the shiver homewaters before, didn't react much.

Goblin proudly swished his tail as if he'd personally carved out the cliffs and planted the terraced greenie himself. “This is my home. Our home.”

Velenka swam over. “Now, I don't know about where you lived before, but there are a few rules we follow.”

“Hmph!” Goblin grumbled. “We do it to make the dwellers feel like they have a say, but sharkkind run things around here.”

“Of course we do,” the mako said before turning to Gray and Barkley. “In this area we don't hunt. It's a safe zone for everyone.”

“Sure,” Barkley agreed. “That's how it was where we lived.”

Goblin jumped back into the conversation. “Ah, but if a dweller leaves this area you can take it as a meal if you're hungry.” The great white ground his triangular teeth together and smiled.

“Really?” Gray asked. This sounded a bit awful. How could you talk to someone one minute and eat him or her the next?

Mari knew what he was thinking and said to everyone, “Yup! You can be having a perfectly nice conversation with a dweller, and if it drifts outside the magical marker, you can have it for lunch! Literally. Isn't Goblin Shiver nice?”

“We aren't supposed to be nice!” Goblin answered sharply. “Nice fish get eaten! We're only as strong as our mariners, and they need to be fed.”

While Gray liked Mari, he thought Goblin made a good point. If Coral Shiver had been stronger, maybe it would still exist. He pushed the thought from his head.

The rest of the day was spent on a tour with Goblin and Velenka. There certainly was a lot to see. Thrash went out on patrol with four other shiver sharks. They met other members of Goblin's Line returning from another patrol: Streak, Churn, and Ripper. Ripper was a giant hammerhead and Goblin's first. He had so many scars it was hard to find a section of his massive body that was unmarred. Streak, a shiny blue shark that seemed really angry, was third in the Line. Mari told him that Streak acted that way all the time. But she said it very quietly, so the blue wouldn't hear. Fourth was Churn, a whitetip who said, “Learn to love patrolling, pups,” and laughed as he passed.

“You've been scratched,” Goblin told Gray. “Looks like my hide has some bite of its own, eh?” Gray looked at his flank down by the tail. It was gashed slightly, blood seeping from the wound. At the reef he would have let it heal on its own.

But Goblin said, “Go with Velenka and get that fixed.”

Mari immediately said, “I'll swim him over there.”

But the great white shook his head. “No, you won't.”

The thresher glared but bobbed her head to the shiver leader and obeyed. Velenka flicked her tail for Gray to follow. With a last look at Barkley, he went.

“You have no clue what getting a scratch
fixed
means, do you?” she asked with a chuckle. Gray didn't but wasn't about to let the mako know that. He swam past a small reef almost entirely covered by starfish. There must have been thousands in a pile, and these stars were much bigger than the ones at the reef. Everything was bigger! It took real effort for Gray not to gawk like a pup at all they passed. She continued, “By treaty, any dweller who dies in the area is given to the bottom feeders, including sharkkind. Waste not, want not.” The rule was the same in his homewaters, but it always made Gray a little queasy. He knew the muck-suckers were just doing their job cleaning the Big Blue. And he guessed it was better than seeing the carcass of one of your shivermates slowly decay into nothingness. But it was still creepy. “In return, they do things for us.”

They swam over to an area where there were many fish, urchins, and crabs. There also seemed to be a few recently injured fish, but amazingly, their wounds had been
repaired
somehow. Gray had never seen anything like it before.

“The shiver requests help!” she announced loudly before turning to him. “I have to go find payment. Be back soon.”

A large yellow surgeonfish came over and swam around Gray's cut. “Ah, not too bad,” she said. “We'll have you in and out in no time. I need a doctor here!” A doctor fish joined them and began nibbling on the edge of his wound.

“Hey! What's the big idea?” Gray shouted.

The surgeonfish swam in front of his left eye. “My name is Oceana, and I'm your surgeonfish. Hold still. We can't fix this if you move around.”

Oceana flicked out razor-sharp spines from the back of her tail and gently cut the ragged edge of Gray's wound. Another doctor fish joined the first and ate the remains. Gray tried not to move as this tickled a little. It was also kind of disgusting.

“We have surgeon and doctor fish at the reef.
Had
, I mean,” Gray said. “But I've never seen any do this!”

Oceana chuckled. “Not every surgeon or doctor fish can. You have to be trained, usually in an ancient shiver's homewaters. The best are the shivers that allied with humans in the olden days.”

“You mean landsharks?” Gray asked. “Sharks and landsharks were friends?”

The surgeonfish nodded at his amazement. “
Landshark
. Such a rustic term. Anyway, we have the finest treatment for wounded sharkkind and dwellers in all the Atlantis. This is literally cutting edge, and you wouldn't see it if you grew up in some out of the way backwater. What we're doing is clearing away the dead and infected skin so we can suture the cut. Hold still.” Gray didn't want to ask any more questions, as he already felt like a jelly-brain, but
suture
the cut? What did that word even mean?

He watched and found out. When the gash was cleaned, it did seem to feel better. An old sea turtle swam up carrying a crab on its back. The turtle hovered as the shellhead, with amazing dexterity, inserted and tied off several urchin spines, knitting both sides of the cut together. It was amazing!

In a moment Velenka came back with a fat haddock in her mouth. She chewed it several times and let it sink to the rock bottom as the crab finished its work. The doctor fish nibbled on the edges of the knitted wound, smoothing them. After they finished, the dwellers descended on the fresh fish.

“Paid in full,” Velenka told Oceana and her assistants. The mako tapped the urchin spines in Gray's flank. “Those will work their way out, or you can come back and have them removed. But then you owe them a fish.”

“Thanks,” he said. The wound felt better, and the oozing blood had completely stopped.

“Come on,” Velenka said to Gray. “Let me show you some of the shorter patrol routes. If you feel well enough, that is.”

“Do I!” he told the mako. Gray wanted to see everything! Luckily, it seemed Mari and Striiker were completely wrong about Goblin Shiver.

THE MOON HAD GONE THROUGH AN ENTIRE
cycle since Rogue Shiver had joined Goblin Shiver. Most days were spent patrolling their territory and hunting. All the sharks from the shiver took turns swimming patrol routes, but there was always a large group protecting the homewaters. Other than a few probing patrols of their own, there was little sign of Razor Shiver. Gray hadn't seen a single bull.

“You think maybe the war is over?” he asked Barkley. “It has been very quiet.” This was Gray's first time patrolling with the dogfish. He had been looking forward to it all week. His friends hadn't adapted to their new lives as well as Gray had to his. Mari and Striiker both seemed edgy or irritated most of the time. Other than a few meetings by the Speakers Rock for announcements or speeches by Goblin, Gray really didn't see his ex-shivermates at all. It seemed as though they were being intentionally kept apart.

“No, it's not over,” answered Barkley, “and this isn't a war. It's more like a turf battle, which is why we didn't know anything about it. If there was a war—a real war—we would have heard something, even by the reef.” The dogfish snapped up a mackerel that passed close to his mouth. “I think we should leave. I hear the Sific Ocean is nice. Goblin would never follow us all the way there,” he told Gray while he munched on the fish.

“And what about your cousins?” Gray asked. “And my mom?”

“Easy. We sneak back through the territory when the time for the Tuna Run comes.”

Gray could see Streak and Ripper in the distance, waiting to continue their patrol. “Let's talk about this some other time,” he told the dogfish.

“Sure, Gray. Whatever.” Barkley swam away without another word.

“Any trouble?” Streak asked.

“All quiet,” Gray replied. The blue nodded, and the pair swam out.

“Well, well, well!” said Goblin, appearing from nowhere. “How's everything going?”

“Fine, Goblin.” Gray grew wary. The shiver leader hadn't ever stopped to chat before.

“Follow me,” the great white told him. They went to the edge of the central area and then a little farther. Suddenly Goblin turned and attacked! It was all Gray could do to evade his initial rush. Then they both spun a tight turn and rammed each other. Gray was dazed, then Goblin started laughing. “You don't know your own strength. For a young pup, you hit like Ripper!”

Gray was confused but couldn't help but puff with pride at the compliment. Ripper was a warrior, a true mariner. That much he knew from his short time here. “Umm, thanks.”

“You've been with us a month now,” Goblin said. “Are you getting your sea legs?”

“‘Sea
legs'
?”

The great white chuckled. “Right, you're from the boonie-greenie.” Gray was about to ask where the boonie-greenie was but thought better of it. “‘Sea legs' is a landshark saying for getting used to the ocean. Humans sometimes get sick on their boats when the chop-chop is rough. When they get used to the waves, they say their landshark legs have turned into ‘sea legs.' Get it?”

Gray understood very little of what Goblin was saying. Barkley would have definitely known. Maybe he should have paid a little more attention in Miss Lamprey's classes. In any case, an answer wasn't required.

“Did you know sharkkind used to talk with the humans? They even use some of our words!”

“Aww, come on,” Gray said before he could stop himself.

But Goblin didn't get angry. “No, really. These homewaters have been led by great whites for thousands of years.” Goblin thumped him on the head with his tail in a joking way. Gray didn't mind, though, as the shiver leader was talking and listening to him. That was something that Atlas never did. “In those days the entire Atlantis Ocean was part of an empire that ruled with an iron fin over all the seven seas.”

Gray was fascinated. He listened as Goblin told him that an evil and corrupt mako empress by the name of Silander ruled everything from her giant kingdom in the Sific Ocean, which was a hundred times larger than Goblin Shivers homewaters. She ordered her brutal, armored
squaline
, which meant “fish soldier” in an ancient landshark language called Latin, to collect food from the shivers until everyone was starving. “
Squaline
is also where the concept of the Line comes from,” Goblin noted. “But good sharkkind in the Indi, Arktik, and Atlantis oceans rose up against her empire. Riptide was formed back then, and it teamed with tattooed Indi Shiver to strike the first blow in a long war.”

Gray was hesitant to interrupt but asked, “Tattooed Indi Shiver?”

“No, they're called Indi Shiver,
and
they have tattoos.” Goblin saw that Gray didn't understand and explained further. “They mark themselves with designs on their bodies by having urchins crawl along their skin and release acid.”

How cool was that? It was the most interesting story ever! Gray listened, totally captivated as Goblin described the pitched battle between
armadas
of sharkkind and dwellers on each side in the South Atlantis that broke Silander's power. It was fittingly called the Battle of Silander's End. After she lost, her own Line sent her to the Sparkle Blue. Then those sharkkind fought among themselves over who would lead, and the empire crumbled, never to rise again.

Gray just gaped. He couldn't believe he had never heard of this before. What kind of school was Miss Lamprey leading? They spent a month studying plankton! But Gray knew it wasn't her fault. The Caribbi sea was off the beaten path, and she probably didn't know anything about the Battle of Silander's End. Or maybe he wasn't paying attention that day in class. It was definitely one or the other.

“So, are there still big battle shivers with armadas of sharkkind?” Gray asked.

“No, they all splintered into smaller ones like here in the Atlantis. Some say Indi Shiver has a new pup king who wants to be emperor of the Big Blue. They say he's already taken over the Arktik.”

Gray gasped. “Is it true?”

The great white chuckled. “No. These stories bubble up every now and again. Ten years ago, a South Sific shiver was supposedly conquering everything. Somewhere far away, there's probably a story about me wanting to be emperor.”

“Do you?”

The great white waggled a fin, pointing. “Can you guess how this part of the Big Blue got its name?” Goblin asked. Gray didn't know, and the story the great white told seemed even more unbelievable and made him forget his question. The Atlantis Ocean wasn't named after sharkkind after all. It was named for landsharks who called themselves Atlanteans! They lived on a faraway island. All the shivers, even when they fought each other, would protect Atlanteans if their ships sank in storms. In return, these landsharks taught them things, just like Oceana told him.

The Atlanteans were the ones who showed sharkkind how to repair battle wounds and even cure fever from the poisonous stings of urchins and jellies with algae and mosses from the ocean. They forged metal armor for sharkkind, with razor edges to cover fins, a spike for the tail, and protective plating for the flanks. Sometimes humans even swam into battle with sharks, protecting their dorsal topside while breathing air from a bladder made of animal skin! The humans who lived on Europa got jealous of the Atlanteans as they became more and more powerful and finally sank their island. They killed many sharks while doing that. Because of this treachery, all sharkkind vowed never to treat with humans ever again. Now any landsharks that came into the Big Blue were fair game.

“Although they're not really worth it, even the fatter ones,” said Goblin as he made a face. “They're bony and don't taste good at all.”

Goblin also told Gray about the measurements landsharks used. These measurements did seem useful, especially when comparing them against the mako standard of flippers and body lengths. It would be easier to tell someone that a drove of halibut was a thousand feet down than to describe it in tip-to-tails. Gray wondered how the landsharks could be so smart and so stupid at the same time. After generations and generations of sailing on the Big Blue, they still can't swim better than a turtle!

“Why are you telling me all this?” Gray asked.

Goblin smiled. “I see potential in you. Who knows, maybe one day you could be in the Line. Maybe even my first.” The initial emotion that hit Gray wasn't pride—that would come later. His first emotion was fear, the image of the ferocious, giant Ripper coming to his mind. Ripper wouldn't like being displaced. Not at all. Goblin seemed to know what he was thinking. “Don't worry, I'm not asking you to fight anyone today. You're not ready yet. And besides, we don't battle for position much anymore. Sharks die often enough without wasting lives.”

“I—I don't know what to say,” Gray stumbled over his words. “It's so…umm…weird.”

“Weird to be appreciated?” Goblin nodded. “I get it. Sometimes when you grow up in a shiver where it's quiet, the sharks in the Line only see you as the pup they scared in the greenie for a joke that one time.”

“Or when you got your head stuck in a bucket,” Gray added.

“What's that now?” asked Goblin.

Gray coughed. “Nothing. You were saying?”

“What I see is a big fin with lots of potential. That's why you're going to the Tuna Run with me and the rest of the shiver.”

“You mean it?” Gray fairly shouted. He was being invited as a
hunter
! His own shiver didn't even want him as a member. Or they hadn't, until…. Suddenly Gray could only think about his mother. Goblin saw his sadness and bumped him.

“None of that now,” he told Gray. “You're going to the Tuna Run, pup. And if you find your family, they'll see what a great hunter you've become. But you need to practice first.”

“Practice for the Tuna Run? How can you do that?”

Goblin just smiled his toothy smile. “You'll see.”