Baby Penguin's Arc

Chapter 8 of 10

They cleared the hills at dusk and stepped onto the open flats. The ground went smooth and white in every direction. Nothing stood tall enough to break the wind. Trailbreaker had carried Baby Penguin down from the last slope in the fur pouch against his chest, and now he stopped to breathe. The rope behind him pulled taut as the parents caught up. The wind rose. It came from the side, low and hard. It found the gap above the pouch collar and pushed straight against Baby Penguin's face. Baby Penguin turned its head. The wind followed. Ice bits stung its eyes. The father hunched. The mother's feathers flattened. "Squall coming," Trailbreaker said. He squinted at a dark line building on the horizon. "We can't cross this in the open. Not with the little one taking it head-on." The father looked back at the hills. Too far. The mother pressed close to Trailbreaker's leg, shielding herself in his shadow. Baby Penguin ducked lower into the fur. The wind still found it. The pouch held its body but not its face. If they stopped here, they lost the night. If they walked, Baby Penguin would freeze from the neck up. Trailbreaker scanned the flats. Fifty steps off, something dark stuck up from the ice. He walked to it, the penguins following on the rope. It was a length of driftwood, half-buried, longer than his arm. He kicked the ice around the base and worked it free. The board came up heavy, twisted at one end, gray and scarred where salt had eaten it. A stub branch stuck out near the bottom like a handle. "Sea must've thrown it up here a long time back," he said. He turned it in his hands. He set the flat side against the wind. The board caught the gust and pushed back at him. He grinned into his beard. He knelt in front of Baby Penguin. "You hold this. Right up in front of your face. Two flippers on the branch here." He guided Baby Penguin's short flippers to the stub. The board was almost as tall as Baby Penguin was long, propped against the pouch and Trailbreaker's chest. It covered everything above the fur collar. The wind hit the board and split around it. Baby Penguin felt the air go quiet against its beak. It blinked. Its eyes stopped watering. The stinging stopped. "Good?" Trailbreaker asked. Baby Penguin gripped the branch tighter. It nodded once against the wood. Trailbreaker stood. He tested the weight, the pouch and the board together, and adjusted the strap behind his neck. "Then we walk through it," he said. "Straight across. No stopping." The father tugged the rope tight. The mother fell in behind. They started onto the flats with the wind screaming past the board, and the flats stayed crossable, and the notch was already behind them.