Chapter Twenty-Five

Dolphin Doom

At dawn, the Kwi Coast Pod gathered near the far boundaries. The Floater had remained through the night, anchored about a quarter mile away. Early scannings revealed that some of the roaming mackerel were back and were being hauled in by the fishermen onboard. There was no trace of the ravaged Whistler carcasses. The tide had evidently whisked them out to sea—or perhaps Snag-Tooth scavengers had returned to finish off the remains of their victims.

Piper thought it suspicious that the Floater had not gone off elsewhere. As she recalled from her spying days, Floaters rarely stayed in one place that long. But she ruled out the idea of bringing it up to the Pod. Their minds were made up. Yet there was one she would still mention it to. QuickFin. Piper was intent on saving his life…and save it she would.

As expected, her brother thought she was making much more of it than she should have. “Piper, we all know you’re better now,” he crooned diplomatically, “but don’t you think there’s a chance you might have frightened yourself so badly with these Killer Imps that you are jumping at the opportunity to blame them? I mean, I’m as grieved at the loss of Buffer and the others as anyone else—more than you may realize. But we still have to think clearly when there’s a crisis like this,” he said as the two of them swayed in the cool morning current. They were lingering at the tail end of the Squad. No formal command had been given to assemble into battle ranks while the Scan Patrol scouted for Snag-Tooth, and so QuickFin was at leisure to break from his own formation and join his sister temporarily.

“Do not get yourself fouled up in our little herald’s cries of deadly Killer Imps,” RamStrong had cautioned QuickFin previously.

Don’t start crying, then, when those evil Humunz turn you into scraps for the Snag-Tooth, you old bone-face, Piper thought when her brother told her what the Commodore had said. Yet QuickFin also made Piper think twice about her own feelings. What if he was right? Was it possible she was indeed overreacting to the presence of this mysterious Floater? Was she now given to the same fears that had driven the Commodore wild with his dread of the Snag-Tooth? It made her understand him a bit more. Did she and Commodore RamStrong not share a common experience? And wasn’t his a worse one, having witnessed his entire family being slaughtered?

But that could happen again if they weren’t careful. Because now, both the Killer Imps and the Snag-Tooth might bring on the Clan’s doom, even if she was wrong about the Floater and RamStrong was right. How could a Pod of some seventy Whistlers hope to deal with the hordes of blood-lusting Snag-Tooth that would surely be drawn to the sounds and scent of so fierce a battle? Didn’t the Commodore realize how hopelessly outnumbered they would be once the Mad-Eating struck their foes?

True, Buffer was dead. But there was no way the Pod could avenge him and the others against such impossible odds. It would take much more than their vaunted Initial Thrust to chase off so many Snag-Tooth. If all the Whistlers left now, those four would not have died in vain. But if they stayed, they would be making the same mistake Buffer and his small band had made. But how could she convince the Pod of that?

As far as RamStrong was concerned, the sea was not going to be safe until every Snag-Tooth in it was dead. But did she not see Humunz in much the same way now? How different was she herself from the Commodore, all due to a terror she alone among them had witnessed? The more she thought about it, the more confused she became. But one thing was clear. She would save her dear brother, at least.

“QuickFin, listen,” she began, “why don—” Piper was cut off by sudden shrill cries.

“The Furies! The Furies! They are upon us!”

The cry rose from the gray sea, cutting through the misty salt air. The Scan Patrol had returned, reporting they had detected a mass swarming of Snag-Tooth out by the Floater. Instantly, every scanner was tuned sharply to the faint sounds of snapping jaws and throaty growls. It was a noise only RamStrong had ever heard—the frightening call of a great Snag-Tooth pack. A pallor washed over the Commodore’s normally dauntless face. This was not a drill, or a boundary skirmish, or a small group of wandering predators seeking to raid the coastal waters. This was the alarming report of a massive horde swarming to the fight in all the malevolent grace of their snaggle-toothed breed.

Hysteria swept the Pod, hysteria born of secret fears and dark superstitions—and pure inbred hatred. So shaken were they all that none homed in a sonic picture of the massing invaders they’d all heard. The Scan Patrol had not bothered, for the frightening report of the approaching sharks had sent the small band of dolphins scurrying back to Thane SilverFlukes and Commodore RamStrong. Hearing the snapping and thrashing of the advancing pack had been enough.

RamStrong and SilverFlukes and the Elders instantly barked out commands to assemble for battle. QuickFin gave a smug twirl of his beak to Piper and swerved to dart back to the front ranks.

Then the truth hit Piper.

It slammed into her so hard she nearly spun over backward into a somersault. She squealed in alarm at QuickFin, so wrought with terror that she accidentally popped open her blowhole. She felt the grotesque sensation of cold salty water gushing into her lungs, as she had while in the Black Waters. A large single bubble flew out from her blowhole, Piper streaked for the surface, expelling the salty spray as she broke through the waves, choking and gasping.

“No!” she screamed, startling him as though she’d read his very thoughts. Piper caught the look of disbelief in his eye. “SlugFlukes said the Killer Imps sometimes catch Whistlers by luring them to their Floaters with sounds they make themselves. He said he doesn’t know how they do it—but that they put something in the water, and it makes noises like the GillFin. But the GillFin aren’t really there. It just sounds like they are!” she cried, wagging her beak in small circles.

QuickFin just stared at her, his handsome face a mask of bewilderment. What was his sister saying?

“Don’t you remember that I said the Humunz stopped their own hunt when you were all fighting with the Snag-Tooth—and they were all watching us?”

QuickFin recalled that. He nodded his beak slowly.

“The Humunz couldn’t understand why we wouldn’t come in for an easy catch of GillFin—but they saw that we would attack the Snag-Tooth!” Piper felt dizzy. A raging sea storm was bursting through her head. Great swells were rising and crashing against the inner walls of her mind. “Brother—there is no Snag-Tooth pack out near that Floater! Just a few GillFins…and the noises the Killer Imps are mak—QuickFin, why are those GillFins still there if so many Snag-Tooth are close by?” she cried chillingly.

QuickFin felt his innards freeze. Certainly the school of little GillFins would have fled already at the sight of so many hungry Snag-Tooth.

“Please!” shrieked Piper, her delicate features contorting practically into a mask of something that seemed more like a thing of Arkitu’s. “Do not think me mad! It is death out there. Death!” she shrieked.

Whoever’s voice had come from the twisted form of his once-delicate sister, QuickFin did not know; but it shook him terribly. He heard the Fury Squad roaring away, probably not even noticing his absence in all their fervor. The proud squadron leader felt the pull. They needed his beak, the blinding charge which he knew that few Snag-Tooth could withstand. But Piper actually made sense now. In all her hysteria—she was making sense!

And something else tugged at him, too. If he went with the Pod now, whether Piper was right or not about these Killer Imps—or whatever it was out there—she would indeed go mad. And in the end, his love for his sister won out. QuickFin stayed behind with her.

They both waited. The boundary region was now deserted. Except for two mothers and their calves that had remained back in the Cove, every other Whistler had gone for the call to alarm. Even the Elders took part—as battle marshals who helped direct the movements of the squadrons. Weaker Pod members also went along to help tend to the wounded, as did the older Whistlers, and even some of the younger ones who were not yet ready to join the fray.

RamStrong’s long-rehearsed plan was not without ingenuity. But he had made a great error in taking nearly every Pod dolphin with him.

Piper and QuickFin waited, and soon they heard the cries.