Chapter Eleven

Heroics

It was a terrible sight to behold. The killer whales were ferocious hunters. Their quarry fought back gallantly, but the toothless gray whales—though sometimes as long as fifty feet and over thirty tons—despite their bulk, were not fighters. Orcas were.

The GhostFins were known to those in the sea as a wise and ancient breed, and too few now to be slaughtered. But the HunterKin were brazen in their ways, boasting there were none in the sea they feared—not even the largest of the Snag-Tooth—and that they were bound to no codes other than their own. They grew to over twenty-five feet in length and most creatures fled at the slightest hint of the burly black-and-white Hunters approaching their waters.

Piper saw clearly that the reputation of the Whistlers’ larger, more ferocious Kin was well-earned. The savagery of their attack was brutal yet masterful. Two of the orcas ripped at the GhostFin’s underbelly while another nipped at its flukes—gracefully avoiding the huge thrashing tail of the gray giant, which, with one swipe, might have battered the largest of its assailants senseless. A fourth one pecked at the GhostFin’s eyes. The last of the attacking pack, a massive bull of at least several tons, barked out commands to the rest, even as it chewed at their victim’s eyes. And once that huge maw finally opened (out of sheer pain), the leader would then snap through the snarls of weed-like baleen and tear out the tongue with a single bite of its strong conical teeth. It was a ruthless system, but it guaranteed success. For all creatures in the sea had to feed in order to survive…and this was the way of the orcas.

If the attack on the Basker at Kwi Coast had shaken Piper’s pride as a Whistler, this display by her larger cousins sickened her all the more. These HunterKin resembled Whistlers…but in a dreadfully fiercer sort of way. And for all she had been told of Snag-Tooth cruelty, she wondered what could possibly be more vicious than these shrieking marauders. What she did next—and from where she mustered the nerve—she would never know. But Thane SilverFlukes had been right when he’d said there was more of a Whistler in Piper than many had realized. She recalled suddenly the parting words of her brother, QuickFin: “Use your speed and use your wits…and never let an enemy know you’re afraid. Sometimes a good bluff will give you all the edge you’ll need.” Piper nodded her beak as though her brother was right there beside her at that telling moment.

“Ho there, my cowardly Kin!” she piped in a whistle so shrill that a geyser of bubbles spewed up from her blowhole. The sound was so sharp that it rose above the high-pitched squeals of the orcas. “Are the HunterKin such feeble hunters that it takes five of you to bring down one tired old GhostFin?” The barnacles and scars that covered the gray whale’s mottled skin showed he was indeed an old one.

Piper maneuvered her sleek light frame into an upright pose, steadying herself with several thrusts of her tail. Her movements were deliberately static and loose, the rictus of her mouth looking like an actual wide smile of mischief. A round of chirping Whistler’s laughter poured out from her blowhole as she chided the marauding killer whales.

“Why, not one of you overgrown Harbor Waifs is a match for a good Whistler. I am truly disappointed… oh, brave ‘Kin!’ ” That last jibe dribbled forth like a stale carcass sinking to the ocean floor. Piper knew she’d have to move quickly.

The orcas, at first, were stunned. Never had any Whistler dared defy them. The only sounds that ever passed between the two breeds were the Whistlers’ cries when the HunterKin dined on their smaller cousins. But this one, this little white-skinned snip, baited them—challenged them!

The bull leader knew he could not ignore such insolence. He signaled one of his band to silence the pesky scamp. Three of them were large she-Hunters, fierce and proud, the other a smaller male, too small and too young to yet pose an authentic threat to the bull’s authority.

Piper anticipated the attack. She was confident that her tremendous speed could carry her safely away from them and hopefully draw them off the GhostFin. If not, she might just as well die. Her exile had made her reckless…carefree. Better to die in such a proud way than whimpering away in the night.

Only a single one of the fierce HunterKin pack left the GhostFin to dispense with the meddling Whistler. The other four continued ravaging the gray giant, who had not failed to perceive Piper’s antics. The old whale was not sure, but it appeared that the chattering little dolphin was risking its life for him. Or had it simply been touched by some madness of the sea? But the whale had no time to ponder this, as four of the orcas resumed their attack. So he fought on with renewed effort.

It was one of the females that attacked Piper, plunging straight at her, jaws agape. Piper thrashed her flukes and, with one strong, horizontal wave of her body, inverted herself and spiraled down under the onrushing killer whale. The huge black-and-white Hunter shrieked, not expecting so coy a maneuver, and dove down after the young Whistler. But the clever speedster of Kwi Coast surprised her attacker again. She twirled round and spun back up, only inches from the plummeting she-orca’s dorsal fin.

Piper’s attacker saw the ruse too late to check her own speed and continued on a downward plunge as the young dolphin flew safely toward the surface. Piper broke through the waves in a plume of blue-and-white spray, gasped heartily for air as she careened nearly ten feet above the water, and plunged straight back down—toward the climbing predatory killer whale.

The maneuver shocked the orca. Here was a Whistler actually charging! More for leverage than concern for the Whistler’s strong beak thrust, the killer whale shifted away to get a better angle for a quick bite. But at that instant, Piper veered away, squealing in mock victory.

“Oooh, but the HunterKin are indeed brave—so brave that they turn aside for the WhistlingFin! Who are masters of the seas now, my clumsy cousins?” And with that, Piper spiraled into the midst of the thundering battle with the GhostFin, the fuming female orca hot in pursuit.

Piper flew past the young killer bull as it flirted with the torn, bleeding tail of the GhostFin. The old whale’s plodding swipes had been ineffective against the lightning thrusts of the much swifter orcas. The GhostFin’s barnacle-crusted body was shredded from countless bites, but he fought on valiantly. He saw the brave little dolphin swim in, and it looked as though the sleek creature was trying to draw off the one attacker that still gnawed at his tail. The gray giant echoed in the distance between the prowling female killer whale and the brave young dolphin. He detected the younger bull disengaging to lash out at the fleeing Whistler, whose uncanny speed made the old whale marvel in quiet amazement.

Through the pain of the ceaseless biting at his torn stomach and jaws, and through the sting in his eyes, the half-blinded gray whale homed in and measured the distance between the she-Hunter and the Whistler. He thrashed twice with his massive flukes.

The young bull orca saw the tail too late to completely avoid it. He went sprawling from the force of the mighty swipe which had merely grazed him. The female Hunter did not fare as well. She had been too obsessed with seizing the chattering Whistler that had embarrassed her and never knew what struck her. She had paid no heed to the giant cetacean’s second swipe, which, with all the momentum gained from the first, slammed into her body with the impact of a cannon shot. There was a ghastly squeal as the she-orca’s insides exploded under the thundering force of tons of flailing gray fury.

A limp black-and-white carcass sank to the depths.

The gray behemoth then turned on his three remaining assailants. Now all was different. Though their quarry was severely cut and bleeding, there were but three left to continue the attack. The older bull knew the GhostFins were more dangerous when wounded.

The gray giant charged, its oversized underjaw clamped tight to its bleeding upper lip. The vast mountain of gray blubber and hide churned toward the remaining three HunterKin like a speeding express train. They parted barely in time as he ploughed by. The force of his charge stirred up fierce undercurrents which threw his trio of smaller foes spinning over in a swirl of flukes and fins.

By now the young bull had regained his senses enough to paddle erratically over to where his companions had been flung by the fury of the gray whale’s charge. A circle of scavenging blue sharks had gathered nearby, awaiting the battle’s outcome. Below, some of them had followed the sinking carcass of the she-orca to the depths, where a grotesque feeding ritual had already begun. The smaller Snag-Tooth party had yielded the sinking carcass to the others for the moment. Now they were attracted by the younger bull’s erratic paddling.

The four orcas huddled together, eying their giant adversary and its diminutive rescuer. The black slits that were their eyes flashed like angry storm clouds as they surveyed the two.

It was over.

The lead bull’s large white teeth glowed in the murk of the gray-blue sea. The round mouth opened in what seemed a wide leer. Piper shuddered at the sight of the great white circle of teeth, realizing that one snap of those powerful jaws could end her life. She scuttled closer to the gray hulk of the GhostFin.

“We shall remember you—brash little Whistler!” roared the older bull, his jaws raised up so hideously that it almost seemed to Piper that the sound came right from the orca’s mouth and not from his blowhole. Then he eyed the wispy forms of the circling Snag-Tooth.

The rapidly massing sharks had sensed the fierce orca poise ebbing and were drawing closer.

“You will regret your bold taunts, oh, light-skinned one. For the misery you have caused us here, I myself will tear out your tongue and feed it to our younglings. Then we shall see how you dare mock the HunterKin!” With that, the pack of four vanished, for the swarming Snag-Tooth were growing in numbers and closing in—while the GhostFin had begun mounting another charge. The disoriented killer whales were not willing to risk yet another untimely death.

Piper remained where she was, shaken by the grim promise of the orca pack leader. She was unsure what to do next as she found herself alone in the company of a mysterious sea giant, a creature she had known only in the lore of legend…while below lurked an ever-gathering horde of hungry Snag-Tooth.