Chapter Twenty-Eight

A Vengeful Ghost

Piper shook in horror. Had she truly seen a vision of the Black Waters and its Cold Lord? Had Arkitu escaped the grasp of the Great Sea Lord and come here to claim the victim he had been cheated of in his own lair? Was it now to be that she and her Clan and even the Killer Imps were fated to wind up as feed for the Cold Lord?

Piper wondered which was worse, falling victim to predatory Land Dwellers—or being claimed by the Cold Lord. At least Arkitu belonged to the sea, she thought. What right did these Land Dwellers have to wreak such terror in the domain of the sea?

Suddenly an explosive crash rocked the air, and the fishing vessel split! Then the raging sea was everywhere. Men tumbled overboard, screeching in fright, while the dead and semi-dead dolphins also plummeted over the sides. The Floater pitched sideways as a sizzling roll of foamy water washed Piper into the sea. The cool water that filtered onto her parched skin was refreshing. It lent her aid in regaining her wrecked senses. The pounding she’d first heard had not let up. It sounded like a monstrous clap of thunder over a stormy sky.

The Floater slipped quickly beneath the waves, and Piper fought hard to orient herself. In the gloom, she made out shimmering images of drowning men and the mass of dolphins that had tumbled overboard. All were being sucked in by the vortex created by the sinking vessel. And through the swirl of thrashing bodies, Piper made out something else—something dark and gray and massive, ramming the Floater repeatedly. The monster attacked the sinking vessel with a might and a rage unlike anything she had ever beheld.

In a matter of moments she understood. SlugFlukes had come to finally claim his vengeance on the Killer Imps. And in these fateful moments, he had rekindled the terror the Hunter-Humunz once held of the mighty GhostFins—the legend which had struck fear into the hearts of the staunchest whalers. SlugFlukes, who had sworn he would one day repay Piper for saving his life. The grand old giant of the sea had not forgotten or abandoned his little friend from the east, nor the oath he had sworn to her.

Now, not ten miles out from San Pablo Bay, SlugFlukes did as his ancestors had done well over a century past. Piper was mesmerized by the majesty of his rage. Never could she have imagined the old GhostFin this way. Even his daring defiance of the HunterKin pack did not measure up to the power he now displayed. And so caught up was she in his rampage, she forgot about the vortex drawing in both dolphin and man indiscriminately. Too late, she tried paddling away, but she was weak and unable to resist its powerful pull.

Piper was badly in need of air now as the vortex sucked her in ever closer. She fell into the whirl that would eventually shrink into a smaller circle until she was completely absorbed. SlugFlukes could not help her. He was far too obsessed in his destruction of the Floater. Was this how it would all now end?

Suddenly she felt the impact of something fleshy and tough as it bumped her to one side. Then a familiar voice: “Must we Waifs do everything for you, my sweet Whistler?”

Piper’s heart throbbed, her mind in disbelief. She recognized the chubby black-and-white form and the stubby flukes, but she could not believe it. LoFin? Was she dreaming? Was that snippy little Rover really here—right by her side? Or was it another hallucination…one brought on by the brutal beatings and her desperate desire to survive?

Her thoughts were interrupted by a thump on her other side. Piper shifted an eye—and what she saw there convinced her it had to be a hallucination. She must already have drowned and gone to some dream world, perhaps one they all passed through before oblivion. It had to be so. For she knew she could not possibly be looking at…Buffer.

Was she still on the Floater imagining all of this? The cool water seeping into her pores and soaking her previously parched flesh told her it was indeed real and happening right now!

She could still hear SlugFlukes ramming the battered Floater and thrashing at it with his flukes, while LoFin and Buffer bumped and brushed her gingerly toward the surface. Above the din of SlugFlukes’ rampage—and LoFin’s complaints that the “oafish Whistler trying to assist knew nothing of gentle rescue”—Piper detected the whimpers and cries of more lamed Pod members being similarly rescued. She weakly scanned the images of more Rovers and Whistlers—were they Buffer’s followers?—scouring the tainted waters for survivors and then bumping them away from the deadly whirlpool.

Soon, another sound filled the surrounding waters, one that Piper fearfully recognized. It was dangerously close…and real this time. And it carried the grim promise of death.

The Snag-Tooth were coming. Their most ancient of hunting calls had summoned them: the thrashing of creatures in distress. And it was the Killer Imps that had drawn the attention of the sharks, luring them on with their immediate panic when their vessel was bashed to bits by an enraged monster of a gray whale. Though Piper’s sonar was badly damaged from the beatings she had suffered, she still managed to pick up the rhythm of sleek bodies approaching steadily, beating through the murk with rapid swipes of their bristly tails. The nerves inside her forehead quivered at the report of the silent hordes that were now massing almost magically. Every second came the signal of one after another—appearing spontaneously as when an artist wrings a wet paint brush all over a clean sheet of paper, filling it with hundreds of dots in a second.

Piper gasped hungrily for air as she and her two rescuers rose above the foggy sea. She started to speak but they both cautioned her against it.

“We must not tarry here long, my spunky friend,” said LoFin grimly, fear in her eyes. “The Snag-Tooth are here for their gruesome feeding.”

“Piper, come,” Buffer urged gently but firmly. “Death as you’ve never imagined is on its way. And,” he added, “there’s much I have to explain once we’re away from here.”

Piper’s brain was as much a whirlpool as the one created by the sinking Floater. It was all happening faster than she could think. She nodded in agreement, but she knew there was something she had to see before she fled.

“A moment, please!” she gasped urgently. Still vigilant, Buffer and LoFin slid gently away from her, accommodating the desperation in her plea. Piper ducked under a few feet so she could scan the scene of the wreck. What she saw through her sonic eye made her understand, finally, what had long ago filled Commodore RamStrong with such fervor. Now she truly forgave him.

It was monstrous. Everything the old Whistler had said about the Furies, she now beheld. It was a scene that would remain with her the rest of her life. Nearly every breed of the Snag-Tooth had come. Their eyes gleamed with senseless hunger, while their lower jaws were slung back, showing row upon row of glistening fangs. Darting out from all directions, they descended like aquatic demons—roaring down upon the writhing men and the stricken dolphins. And now, Piper could make out more clearly the hazy shapes of Buffer’s and LoFin’s small pack of rescuers, still gallantly trying to save the surviving Whistlers from the slashing jaws of death.

Piper turned to say something to Buffer and LoFin, but only Buffer was there now, his eyes pleading for her to depart. Above the noise she could hear LoFin’s shrill voice. The glib little Waif certainly wasn’t without courage, she thought, as the porpoise had zoomed off—outside the mass of frenzied sharks—and was trying to call off SlugFlukes before it was too late. LoFin cried frantically for the GhostFin to break off the attack and flee the blood-filled waters. But the old whale was now as crazed as the slashing sharks that tore away at the drowning men. The gray giant continued goring the broken hulk of the Floater.

Poor old RamStrong, thought Piper. So this was what drove him so mad that it tormented him his entire life. By now, the Furies had grown into so savage a welter that some of the Snag-Tooth turned their attacks upon themselves. Piper felt sick as she watched them chewing out their own entrails and then trying to eat the shreds, only to have them spill back out again in bloody hunks. Occasionally a clutter of red-stained arms and legs would fly loose. Other times a frenzied shark would rip out select chunks of flesh from one of the wriggling human bodies. The more frantic the Humunz became, the more excited the Snag-Tooth grew, capricious in the fury of their hunger.

Soon, the panicky floundering of the drowning men drew the main body of sharks away from the injured dolphins, allowing the small rescue band of porpoises and dolphins to save a few more. But they had to flee soon—and flee fast—before the unpredictable Snag-Tooth shifted their pattern again. Somewhere in that unholy midst, Piper knew the lifeless body of Commodore RamStrong had come to the grisly end he had long feared. And that made her think of Thane SilverFlukes, also out there in so many different pieces. She wondered what had happened to QuickFin. Was he alive, dead, half-eaten, or…had he possibly been rescued? She hoped…

Buffer nudged her, interrupting her thoughts once more. Piper’s beak tingled as she drew in the sonic image of a burly man, half-devoured, staring senselessly at his own innards spilling out in a scarlet heap. And she knew it was the big one that had dealt SilverFlukes his death blow. The man screamed hysterically as his lungs burst from the rush of water pouring in.

Piper felt no pity for him, or for the others. Nor did she scorn the savagery of the Snag-Tooth as they darted wildly through the bloodied OutZone like wispy shadows of a bizarre justice.

****

LoFin finally managed to signal SlugFlukes away from the demolished poacher vessel, which now lay in splinters on the sandy bottom. What an enemy this old one makes when aroused, thought LoFin. The chunky porpoise marveled as she watched SlugFlukes swipe away several lolling sharks that had foolishly tried assaulting him. One blow of his roaring flukes was all it took for him to bat the four dolphin-sized sharks into oblivion.

Once the old GhostFin was sure Piper had been saved, SlugFlukes drew himself away from the wreckage. All debts were settled, and he rumbled off in triumph, bellowing a song of victory that filled all of Kwi Coast, a chant that spoke of an aged giant who had finally taken his long-awaited vengeance.

As the tiny band of Whistlers and Rovers fled the nightmarish waters, followed by the GhostFin, the tormented cries of those dying echoed throughout the waters like a dirge—reminding all who could hear that not even the powerful Land Dwellers could claim to be masters of the sea.