Free Oshenerth by Alan Dean Foster

achievement would not go unnoticed, their hard work would not pass unrecognized.
    Unfortunately, such was already the case.
    There was a reason why those who set out to search for food beyond the safety of their villages kept close to the reefs of Yellecheg and Hingarol, Sandrift and Colaroosek. There was a reason why the open ocean was for the most part avoided by hungry mersons and their manyarm friends. In addition to supplying food, the reefs of home also provided positions of strength from which to fight and defend. With rock and coral at their backs, both mersons and manyarms could defend themselves efficiently. Out in the liquid space of empty sea, others had the advantage. Others who were more maneuverable, swifter, and in many ways more deadly.
    There must have been a hundred sharks, an alarmed Chachel saw. Mostly lightning-swift blues and makos, a couple of errant hammerheads along for the ride, and at the head of the mob—two great whites, possibly three. Not good odds, not good at all. As the clan bunched together, forming a school of mersons, the smaller of the great whites advanced toward them. The lazy side-to-side flicks of the immensely powerful tail hardly seemed to require an effort. At full thrust, Chachel knew, that tail could hurl its owner forward with enough force for the head to shatter rock.
    For the moment the smaller of the two male whites seemed content just to swim a tight circle, flashing its frozen, bone-chilling grin. Spear at the ready, Jeralach swam out from the rest of the clan to confront it. Along with the rest of his friends and family and clan members, Chachel strained to hear what merson and shark would say to one another. Had he taken a moment to look behind him, he would have noted that every one of the thousands of fish that had previously been calmly circling the seamount had fled; vanished into the distance, into the depths, or into any and every available crevice in the rock. In the space of a moment, the seamount known as Splitrock had been transformed into an eerie, abandoned, underwater desert.
    “Greetments, merson.” The voice of the great white rumbled up from deep within as it cruised methodically back and forth, back and forth, in front of Jeralach.
    “Good day to you and your fellow scavengers.” Keeping a wary eye on the great white, Jeralach held his spear loosely in both hands—but not so loose that the point wavered in the current. “Out hunting for a change?”
    “Indeed.” If the massive shark noticed the merson’s sarcasm, it took no offense. “A tiring and often futile proposition. This morning we are feeling lazy.” The tip of his snout rose slightly. “We could not miss the smell of so much blood.”
    “True, some blood has been spilled.” The leader of the hunters could hardly deny it. Not with his companions clustered around a dozen haulsacks full of fish both alive and dead.
    “Indeed,” observed the great white. “I see you have had good hunting. Myself, I am always admiring how you mersons, having such ridiculous poor teeth of your own, fashion killing substitutes from shell and stone, coral and bone.”
    “We make do with what we have.” Jeralach gestured meaningfully with his spear. “It’s true that our teeth are few. But they are sharp, and their reach is long.”
    “Long and efficient,” the great white admitted. “As are the nets you make. I see that yours are full. Being so successful in your hunting, it would be polite of you to share with those who have had less luck and are also hungry.”
    A tense Jeralach studied the slowly swimming line of sharks. Led by a pair of makos, twenty or so blues were drifting off to the right, another dozen to the left, while the central body of the unusual school was working its way up or down. Not all nets were made of woven material, he mused worriedly. And the numbers were undeniably bad.
    “We would be happy to share with our friends the sharptooths. There is enough for all. Freely will