Free The Last Emprex by EJ Altbacker Page B

he shouted.
    Gray swam away while he had the chance. “Takiza?” he called.
    There was no answer. Where was his master?
    Gray looked at Riptide and the Sixth Shiver horde. It had been no more than a minute since the battle between their forces began. Riptide was doing well, but the size and bulk of the mosasaurs was turning the tide.
    Striiker and Grinder were trying to withdraw but the frills and mosasaurs wouldn’t let them. Then Gray saw another group of jurassics—the other half of the horde—coming from the side. Grimkahn had split his forces. Gray had been doubly tricked, it seemed. If the other half of the horde joined the fight, all their mariners would swim the Sparkle Blue.

    Hokuu swam away, blood streaming from his injury.
    All his plans were ruined because of a stupid mistake!
    What could be worse than this?
    Suddenly Hokuu had to dodge an attack by twenty sharks!
    They were led by a dogfish—and Velenka!
    â€œYou!” he shouted.
    â€œYes, me!” she shouted, her eyes blazing. And Velenka came straight at him! The mako traitor succeeded in nipping his tail, and a flash of pain almost paralyzed Hokuu. Normally he could have disposed of this crew easily—it would have been fun—but he was injured. He struck at Velenka with his tail but only grazed her flank.
    â€œTake him down!” cried the dogfish.
    Hokuu tail spiked two mariners who came up from the seabed. It was lucky he had been twisting from the previous attack or he wouldn’t have seen them and would have been struck right in his wounded belly. Hokuu moved fifty yards away with a burst of shar-kata. Again, two hammerheads came at him from below as if they had been waiting there!
    These were no ordinary sharks.
    Hokuu gathered what power he had left and fast-swam out of there. He stopped a mile away from the raging battle, checking the seabed first this time, and then looking at his injury. It was deep. But with dark-kata, Hokuu could heal himself good as new and gain the valuable power that he needed for revenge. He would need to steal life force.
    A lot of it.
    With a ripple of his wounded body, he moved himself forward.
    This
hurt
and Hokuu’s anger grew.
    He would find his life force
donors
as soon as possible.
    And after that he would see to Grimkahn, Takiza, Gray, and all the others.
    Hokuu would see to them all!

CHAPTER 13
    THEY WOULDN’T LAST MUCH LONGER, THOUGHT Striiker as he grit his teeth in frustration. His mariners were holding their shape beautifully. There wasn’t a fin out of place. They were tearing through the frilled sharks in their path with a raking Topside Rip attack on the blocky jurassic formation. Even in the midst of the chaotic battle, he was so proud of them. With any luck Grinder’s crew was doing the same amount of damage.
    The problem was that the frilled sharks were too fast.
    While splitting their mega-armada into two separate armadas had caught the jurassics by surprise, the frilled sharks were only confused for a second. After that they launched themselves upward and struck at the underside of Striiker’s mariners.
    Even without Grimkahn in the thick of it, they couldn’t win a snout-to-snout brawl. Striiker allowed himself the barest smile as he remembered Gray streaking past the mosasaur king and giving him the tail slap to end all tail slaps. It didn’t injure Grimkahn, though.
    No, it was better than that. It insulted the king in front of his mariners.
    But Striiker couldn’t think about that now. Dividing their armada had given them thirty seconds of relief with the mosasaurs stuck in the middle of the horde’s own block formation. Now, the beasts were getting into the action both above and below. They emerged through the chaos. One snapped up two entire mariners off to Striiker’s left, near his diamondhead position. The frills were lethal enough but the mosasaurs were too much. Striiker had to get his mariners away from this