Free Oshenerth by Alan Dean Foster Page A

we split our catch with you.”
    The great white considered, flashing an occasional glance back toward the mob where his brother and the single female, larger as usual than either of the males, waited. Beneath him, his claspers twitched.
    “We are very hungry.”
    “Sharks are always hungry,” Jeralach countered with a combination of truth and a desperate attempt at humor. “Don’t worry. There is plenty here to eat.”
    “That is truth,” the great white agreed. “And we are ready to share in feeding. I think we should begin now—with you!”
    Chachel thought he was prepared for what happened next. But he had never seen a great white attack—only inshelf gray reefs, blacktips, whitetips, and other much smaller sharks. The huge, perfectly hydrodynamic shape exploded through the water, heading straight for Jeralach. How the organizer of the hunting expedition managed to sideswim the attack while simultaneously stabbing with his spear Chachel did not know. The sharpened bone pierced the left flank of the great white. The merson had spilled first blood—but critically, had missed the gills.
    Within seconds the area to the immediate west of Splitrock was boiling with activity. Closing ranks to form a schooling sphere, all weapons pointed outward, the hunting party faced their attackers. Haulsacks full of fish that had been the object of so much effort and coordination were abandoned. They were promptly shredded by the eager squadrons of blue sharks who tore through tough netting and dead fish with equal alacrity. The remaining members of the mob turned their attention to prey that was both larger and still alive.
    Occasionally a shark would try a perceived weak spot in the hovering ball of mersons, only to be met by a spear thrust that would send it reeling backward, frustrated and bloodied. Hemmed in by adults on all sides, a frightened Chachel wielded his own hunting spear with all the skill and determination he could muster. Considered the strongest member of his peer group, he intended despite his fear to give a good account of himself.
    His chance came when two blues charged straight at his side of the schooling formation. The adults on either side of him jabbed out immediately, instinctively. Remembering the teachings of his weapons master caused Chachel to hold back. The first two spear thrusts should be sufficient to dissuade the blues and—sure enough, coming up like lightning from below were a pair of ferocious makos. One of the adults beneath him and facing downward warded off the first shark, but the second slipped past. Even as he heard one of his parents’ friends scream as the mako’s jaws closed, Chachel was stabbing frantically downward. He was rewarded with the sight of the mortally wounded mako slinking off, the silver-blue streamlined body spasming violently as it fought to dislodge the spear that had pierced it completely through at the gills. Instantly surrounding their condemned comrade, a quartet of blues proceeded to tear him to pieces while he was still alive.
    Though it raged for what seemed like days, the actual clash lasted less than an hour. Pierced by spears, one shark after another retreated with wounds some of which were survivable and others not. Meanwhile Chachel’s hunting companions, adult and youth alike, suffered a steady and horrific attrition. Despite the constant current, there was so much blood in the water that it became more and more difficult to pick the fast-moving foe out of the increasingly red-stained gloom. Bits and pieces of torn flesh, still intact body parts, eviscerated organs, bone fragments that caught the overhead mirrorshine like flung handfuls of mother-of-pearl, all spun and spiraled and tumbled through the agitated water around him. Those bits that fell or were carried by the current out beyond spear-stabbing range were instantly snatched up by the ravenous horde of eager sharptooths.
    What had begun as a relatively straightforward confrontation over food