Not only was their
battle as cruel and fierce as any he had ever seen on land, but the
speed and nature of their movements was so reminiscent of the small,
poisonous spiders of the Carak that he, an immense land animal
infinitely safe upon the inaccessible rock, had unconsciously recoiled
in fear and disgust.
On another occasion a smallish gray shark, deceived this far north by an
alluring current of warm water, became entangled in one of the nets they
had strung at the end of a natural jetty. When dragged ashore with the
meager catch that had lured it, its death struggle had been so ferocious
that it haunted Kalus' sleep for weeks afterward. Hopelessly
entangled, drowning in a sea of air, it had nonetheless thrashed and
snapped for what seemed a eternity, destroying the net and reeking such
havoc that the startled fisherman, had he been able, would gladly have
thrown it back into the sea. And even when it finally expired, the
razor-sharp teeth and leering jaws had presented such a frightening
specter that he refused, instinctively, to touch it.
Reluctantly Sylviana had admitted that this behavior, either in killing
or being killed, was in no way exceptional among sharks. And far from
being the archetype of its race, this relatively small and undeveloped
creature could not begin to match the rakish refinements of the Blue,
the Tiger, and the ineffable Great White.
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