The Penguin Horde

Chapter One

Beginnings

The penguins are dreaming. They sway from side to side as the wind bristles their feathers, as if hypnotised. Only the ones on the outer edge of the circle are awake. Their eyes forever watching, watching for a sign. They know what they are looking for.

When the time comes, they will wake the others, their eyes as grey as the ocean below them. The penguins are dreaming. They are waiting. They are the Horde.

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Cesk didn't like his name. He didn't like his step-mother, Marlene the bear, shouting his name. And when she shouted it again and again, he hated his name.

The little penguin had been given a perfectly good name by his parents, and when he was lost, they had changed it to Cesk, perhaps because it was short and easy to shout.

Marlene the polar was the one who found him so far north, accidentally, so Cesk didn't know why he should thank her. If it hadn't been for his step sister Lucille, Marlene would've eaten him.

Cesk was short, with one flipper longer than the other. He could swim as fast as any of his family, and could argue just as much. Cesk was a great arguer. He hadn't met anyone he couldn't win an argument with. That's how he had managed to survive the below freezing temperatures, and Marlene's belly.

But there was a problem. The little penguin found that after one argument, he was tired, and that's why he had to do his chores regularly, share his fish and help Lucille. It was always help Lucille.

“Cesk!” Marlene shouted, scratching her behind against a nearby rock. “You had better not be wanting a share of this fish I stole from Lucille today. She wants more, go get her some.”

Cesk hung his head. He bristled his own feathers, and shuffled off down the rock, slipping and sliding all the way. There had to be something better than this. There was something better than this.

Bears were not kind. They were greedy, and jealous of each other. They never let Cesk join in on the huddle at night, so he shivered out in the cold on his own. It was times like these that he wished his parents had been more careful not to lose him, or the egg he had been born in.

He was too small for the huddle anyway. The one place he couldn't argue his way into, but maybe that was an advantage. He didn't want his beak squashed up against a bear's behind. The matted fur and smell alone would be awful. Cesk decided that burying himself under the snow was the best way. He lived under the rocks sometimes in the summer but this wasn't much better.

The other bears told Marlene to get rid of Cesk, sometimes in front of him, which Cesk thought was just rude. But Cesk knew that if he didn't follow the bears around, then he might not survive. A lone penguin is a target.

He looked down into the cold, grey ocean, thinking that maybe this life wasn't so bad.
“Hurry up, Ceskino. I'm absolutely starving. If you don't move soon I'll be chewing the flippers off you.” Lucille slid down the ice, pirouetting like a dancer before coming to an elegant stop before she hit the water.

“Don't you get bored bossing me around?” Cesk didn't want to start one of his world famous arguments, but he felt if he didn't look as if he was putting up a fight, then Lucille would make life on the rock very difficult.
Lucille laughed.“S'funny that. I really don't ever get bored of it. Marlene the Great wants more fish too, so you'd best get diving, before the killers come out to play.” She walked off, kicking bits of ice his way.

Lucille knew that Cesk feared the Whales. She had mentioned them on purpose to make him frightened. He shook his flippers out, trying not to let his nerve fail him today. If he returned with no fish, then Marlene would punish him.

He would be allowed into the huddle, only to be kicked and shoved until he was covered in bruises.
One orange foot curved around the edge of the ice plate he was standing on. Lucille was right, the killer whales would be out soon.

Cesk jumped up into the air. He twisted around on himself, somersaulting before hitting the water. He could swim faster than any of those lazy, chubby blobs of fat back there.

His flippers skimmed the surface of the water. Cesk dived down where the bubbles burst in the darkness and the salt tasted richer than anything in the air above. Here he could think properly. As he dived deeper, he swore he heard someone calling his name, his real name. But that couldn't be, because no one but his parents knew his real name.

He spotted the shoal in the distance, moving together, fanning out. They could read each other's thoughts. They protected each other. Cesk felt sad. There was no one for him to move as a team with. He kicked his feet faster and swam as if his life depended on it.

It's a good job Cesk thought, that when you're underwater, no one can tell if you're crying.