Defender of the Future
Book one of
The Tidesinger Trilogy

Chapter Seven

Greshruk circled twice, lazily, biding her time. The second time, the great pectoral fin with its black-tipped point actually brushed across the rock face where Ecco lay hidden, dislodging several small pebbles. Half-fascinated by the shark, he watched her jaws working, carrying their burden of serrated triangular teeth.

"Ahh..." The Slayer sighed, a slow, cruel sound with a hint of a chuckle in it. "Now I smell you, little mammal. Yesss... I smell your hot body in the water. I know you." She circled, slowly, with infinite patience. "Tell me... who is it that is so bold as to call me by my name?"

Ecco gulped, his quest nearly going out of his head. "I--I'm Ecco."

"Ecco..." Greshruk chuckled to herself, the sound of rocks tearing and breaking free somewhere deep in the Crushing Dark. "Ecco. A well-enough name for a sprat like yourself. Well... Ecco... why did you call me? I am intrigued..."

Keep her interested, a voice screamed in his head, and you may still have a chance to get out of this alive. "Please..." he said nervously, unsure how exactly to address the shark, "I, er... I wanted to ask you something."

"Ask..." Greshruk drew the word out; he could hear it hissing between her teeth. She slowed, cruising round on her wide circle in front of his prison, barely moving her tail. Every time she passed, he felt the displaced water push him back in the cleft.

"I--I wanted to know--please--about T-t--" He stuttered on the word, and let out a whistle, annoyed at himself. "Tidesinger," he finished desperately. "The legend--I--I heard you might know something about him, or--or the Foe--" He hated the way his voice was coming out, scared and sniveling as if he were a calf, but he was having trouble speaking at all in front of the Slayer. She carried an aura of fear with her, as carelessly as a leaping dolphin would carry sunlight on his back.

Greshruk's flat black eye rolled backwards in his direction as she passed by again. With a sudden flash of power that was all the more shocking for being so understated, the shark pumped her tail and swung off on a wider circle, turning it into a figure-of-eight--flaunting her strength before him. "So... Tidesinger. Well, that is a name I have not heard in a long time... so, so..." She chuckled again, meat tearing in a blood-red sea. "You did not come here to ask me of a delphine legend, little mammal... why sacrifice yourself for that which any noisy singer could have told you?" The shark's eye gleamed with ancient cunning. "No, you come to ask me of something else. You want to ask me about the Foe."

Ecco jerked.

"Of course, little mammal... I know the Foe." Greshruk swung round and came back through the circle; she swam steadily towards him with jaws open, allowing him to see past the knife-edge teeth and into the pale cavern of the throat--not a sight many dolphins had seen and lived after. Ecco could not help letting out a little squeak of terror. At the last moment, the shark swung away and resumed her circling, gliding over the reef in front of him. "Yes," Greshruk purred softly, half to herself. "I was there, then, when the waters ran red with blood. Those were fine days, but too few... I was but a youngling, and for me there were rich pickings after the Foe had departed. Alas, I am too great and old now to scavenge." Her eye flashed. "But they were fine days, all the same. And now the Foe has returned."

"Yes," Ecco said quietly, recovering a little of his lost poise. "Castor--a whale I met, said that you might know how the Foe could be defeated. Tidesinger drove them out before. Please, could you tell me what I need to do?"

"Why bother?" Greshruk purred. "In a little while you will never have to worry about the Foe again."

"Wh-what?" He stared at her; she swam towards him and then swung away again, her dark eyes flashing with amusement behind the saw-edged grin. The threat of the gesture was as obvious as a belly-up sturgeon. With a lurch Ecco understood what the Slayer meant by that. "Then," he said bravely, "you won't have anything to lose by telling me."

"Clever little mammal..." Greshruk laughed again, throatily. "Well... since you put it that way... what do you wish to know about the Foe?"

"How to fight them," Ecco answered promptly.

The Slayer paused in her endless circling, gazing at him with a dark, hungry expression. "Nothing could be easier, little mammal. The blind white charge, the swift punch with the snout, the crushing of the body in your jaws... what a shame that you are not a shark."

"Tidesinger did it," he pushed. "Please, you must have heard it at the time. What happened? How did he defeat the Foe?"

"What does it matter to you, air-breather? You won't be alive long enough to see one."

"I've already seen them." Grimly he noted the slight increase in the Slayer's speed, the way her gills worked a little faster. "In fact, I escaped them twice--once with the help of a sperm whale," he admitted modestly. "They took my family, that's why I'm after them. Please, Slayer, tell me how I can fight them!"

"Hah." Greshruk swerved and began to circle again; she bore down on his hiding place with jaws agape, and then slid off at a tangent to circle round and do it all again. The longer tailstrokes she was making betrayed her impatience--she wanted to eat him and get it over with. Patience, Ecco thought, you're losing her. "Why should I tell you?" the Slayer asked simply. "Why would I have any wish to help mammals? Your family" -she said that with a sneer- "is none of my business."

"I know, but..." He had a sudden brainwave. "If the Foe triumph this time, there won't be anything left, Greshruk. That means no food. You'll starve." The only thing sharks fear is starvation. Corse had told him that, trying to impress on a younger Ecco the need to stay within the safety of the bay. "It's in your interests to stop the Foe as much as it is in mine."

Greshruk's jaws worked slowly. "It's true what they say about your kind," the Slayer growled slowly, "you are clever little pests. I never bothered to speak to one of you before. I am impressed--for that I will make your end a swift one once you finally quit your eelhole." She swung round and came back for another pass; he remembered that the great white sharks had to keep swimming all the time, in order to breathe. They were the ultimate eating machines--they never rested. "But you are a fool if you think I can tell you how to destroy the Foe," Greshruk went on. "What do I know of songs and stories?" The corners of her mouth wrinkled into the shark equivalent of a pleased expression--it was the grin she would wear before the charge and the bite.

"My people, little mammal--the descendants of Carcharodon the Mighty--we do not sing amongst ourselves. We do not tell stories. We do not cluster in groups for protection, with the exception of the silly hammerheads. We are a law unto ourselves. We need no lore, no seers or mystics. We simply exist.

"Yes, I know how your ancestor destroyed the Foe. He had songs of power, magical spells. There was something mystic in Tidesinger, some ancient power long since lost. I remember that my father, Carcharodon the Mighty, once ripped Tidesinger's silver hide with his teeth, but the singer survived and was the only one ever to come alive from Carcharodon's jaws." Greshruk eyed Ecco balefully. "Do not think that you will be so lucky."

"Songs of power..." Ecco frowned. "You don't know any of them?"

Greshruk laughed coldly. "Do you think that I have a singing voice, you foolish little creature? No, ask me not of songs. I could teach you much of biting, though..." Her greedy eye fell on him again, and he shuddered. "I could bite right through your slender little body. You would break in my jaws like a brittle-star."

"Then I'll have to make sure that doesn't happen," Ecco retorted, feeling a little of that warrior-fire start up in his belly. "You can't get me anyway, while I'm in here. And I've got air, so don't think you can drown me out!"

The Slayer swung towards him with terrible jaws wide open. This time, however, Greshruk did not stop but slammed snout-first into the rocky wall right above him. A cascade of sand and pebbles showered down, and Ecco felt the stone creak around him with the force of the impact. He squealed in alarm.

Swinging away again as if nothing had happened, Greshruk resumed her calm circling. Her left nostril had been torn from the crash, and a thin thread of blood trailed back from her pointed snout to peter out by her gills.

"Make no mistake, little one. I shall have you sooner or later. You will die in my jaws, like hundreds before you. I do not give up easily."

"Neither--neither do I," Ecco stuttered. His protective prison was still holding, but he knew he had better not make her any angrier or she might well decide to simply starve him out. He backfinned a little, away from the steadily circling Slayer. "Where could I find someone who might know of these ancient songs?"

"You can't," Greshruk answered, sounding coldly pleased. "The lore was lost long ago. I have not heard the songs in thousands of years."

"Thousands?"

"But of course," she said carelessly. "My people do not die of old age, little mammal, and once we attain a certain size there is nothing that can kill us... save perhaps another one of us. And we are merciless towards the weak. I am the Slayer, the oldest living. My father Carcharodon survived the blow-that-broke-the-world."

"Blow-that--? Ecco blinked. He was out of his depth.

Greshruk chuckled again. "Yesss... if you by some miraculous chance should escape my jaws, ask a horseshoe crab about it. My people have lived on in our ancient manner through events that wiped out nearly every other species on the planet. You and your so-wise whales are children compared to us. But enough of this--you ask where to find the songs of power."

"Yes. Do you know where to find them?"

"There is a ruined city of Man," the Slayer said dreamily, "hidden away within the waters of our ocean. In that place Tidesinger was born, and lived. You will find what you seek within Atlantis, or nowhere at all. There, I have said my piece."

"Atlantis?" Ecco had never heard the name before. "Okay... then, where can I find Atlantis?"

Now Greshruk really laughed, opening her terrible jaws wide and thrashing her sickle tail in cruel joy. "You can't, little mammal, and I mean it this time. Atlantis was locked away from our waters when the ocean floor burst asunder ten thousand years ago. If it still stands." The Slayer paused, looking at him out of her empty eye. "Nobody save the Asterite knows where it lies, and the Asterite is long lost. Deep under the sea bed, in all likelihood. So I stand by my words--you will find what you seek in Atlantis, or nowhere at all.

"Now, young Ecco, it is time for you to die. So come out of your hole before I decide to dig you out, and I will make your end a swift and merciful one."

She had been playing with him, Ecco realized. Syuuii! The Slayer had never meant to tell him anything useful--this had been part of some sort of game to her, raising his hopes only to dash them again. Perhaps she wanted to feed off his pain, or make him angry enough to dart out of his sanctuary and try to take her on. He stared out at the white monster, and felt his fury grow into something white-hot and holy.

"Dig me out?" he shouted, his shrill voice shivering through the water. Greshruk's blunt spear of a head turned swiftly in his direction, the jaws opening slightly in anticipation. "I suppose you would at that, you great stupid fish! Well, I'm not going to make it easy for you! I faced down the Foe by myself--I'm not going to be afraid of something like you! Dig me out? Come on and try, you fat old root-feeder!"

Greshruk roared--he heard it. The shark turned like a lightning bolt and came arrowing towards him; he saw the black eyes roll right back into the head as the mouth opened wide, the upper jaw coming forward to extend the triangular teeth. The slam of displaced water as the great white hit the rock face half-stunned him. Stone rained down upon him, as did clouds of dust from above. Ecco heard the stone creak again. Greshruk backed off, but only for a moment; she came around in a long, swinging arc, tail flailing like a machine, and slammed the stone again--and then again. There was a rending sound from somewhere far above him; Ecco knew that the entire cliff face was about to give way.

Was this how it was going to end? The dolphin's mind raced. Crushed under stone or bitten in two by the giant shark... neither option was one he particularly desired. He turned with difficulty, backfinning further into the cleft as Greshruk came for him again, and sonar-clicked the back of the cave. A passage, very steep and narrow, led down for a long way. The shark hit the rock again, driving her snout into the cleft, widening it. He screamed shrilly as the terrible teeth snapped together only an inch or so from his tail.

"Just... a little... further..." Greshruk was snarling. The stone squealed as the great white drove harder with her tail, forcing her way into the tiny hole, heaving the sides of the cave apart with sheer power.

Ecco rose and drew air he could just reach. If he had wanted to, he would have been able to reach out and touch the snout of the great white; Greshruk's huge body more than half filled the opening now. The jaws snapped and twisted together; the tail lashed about outside, throwing waves of water around.

He realized that he would rather drown slowly than be eaten or crushed fast. Clamping down tight on his precious lungful of air, Ecco backed off and dashed down the tunnel away from the shark. Her hissing voice sounded loud in his ears. "I will have you one day, little mammal! I have your scent in my nostrils! I will have you!" Then sound itself became meaningless as the cliff face fell with the crashing of a cataclysm. Awash in a sea of fury Ecco could only flee further in; pebbles banged upon his back as the entire tunnel threatened to collapse around him. Cracks shot along the tunnel roof above his head, moving faster than he could swim. With a squeal, he swam faster into the lightless depths, click-clicking his way. A dead end ahead--no! An exit!

Ecco flung himself through the opening, nearly getting caught by his dorsal fin; he fought free and was suddenly out into a wide expanse. The crashing and rumbling reached a pitch, and then slowly began to subside. Hardly knowing who he was or where he was going, the stunned dolphin kept swimming as the world shivered and shook. At last, it became silent, or nearly so--save the long creaks from the slowly settling rock.

He turned. The tunnel through which he had come was totally blocked off. Ecco had no idea whether Greshruk had been crushed under tons of rubble or whether she had survived--and to be honest, he didn't care. Sonar was telling him that he was in a large open area--a cave, underground apparently.

The water tasted of sand and muck, but it wasn't fetid. There was air down here somewhere. Beginning to entertain the possibility that he had survived that encounter, Ecco began to swim again, clicking his way through the darkness. He didn't know whether to feel relieved or not--quite possibly if there was no way out, he had exchanged a swift death for a slow one.

He was suddenly very hungry.