by Liam Lawson
An Orc at College
Book 2
By Liam Lawson
Copyright © 2019 Liam Lawson
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter One
A scream tore through the night.
Trorm leapt from his bed, grabbed his staff, and bolted for his bedroom door. He knew that voice. Muttering a spell under his breath he cast a shielding spell about him and tried the door across the hall. Locked. Invisible shield raised before him like a battering ram, Trorm threw himself into the door, ripping it free of the doorframe in a shower of splinters.
A glowing sword came out of nowhere as the door fell away, halted from cutting him down only by the invisible shield before him, which it impacted with a shower of golden sparks. The sword was held by an athletic red-head in baggy sweatpants and a tank top that struggled to contain her bust. For a moment her eyes flared with violence and Trorm readied himself to pull back on the defensive.
The moment passed and recognition dawned. The sword lowered and the swordswoman, Lilian Madden, whirled to face the window, weapon ready even as Trorm prepared to cover her with a bolt of lightning. Nothing attacked.
“Gods, you broke the door,” said Abigail from her futon on the floor. Her sheets were a tangled mess, as was her mane of blue braids. Her legs were completely wrapped up in her sheets and her sweat had soaked through her sleepshirt. She wore her glasses, but judging from how she was blinking, Trorm suspected she’d only just put them on.
It had been her who had screamed.
Trorm and Lilian exchanged glances, then, neither one dropping their weapons, they fell to the futon on either side of her and wrapped Abigail in their arms.
The smaller girl shook. “I am so embarrassed.”
“Hush,” Lilian said. “There’s nothing to be embarrassed about.”
“I saw him again,” Abigail whispered. “In my dreams. He didn’t have a hostage this time. I shot him anyway.”
Lilian and Trorm exchanged a look over Abigail’s head. The nightmares weren’t new. The screaming was.
A month ago there had been an incident with another student from the Arcane Academy who played football on the team with Trorm, Arlen Hunt. Arlen had been trying to summon something nasty into their reality to “cleanse” it of evil. Trorm, Lilian, Abigail, and two others had stopped him. One of the others was Trorm’s girlfriend Winnie, who had ended up with a knife to her throat. Abigail had shot Arlen in the head and saved Winnie.
Trorm didn’t fully understand why it bothered her so much. As an orc, killing an enemy brought honor, not shame. Aflana human culture was so different though. Violence was a stranger to their day-to-day lives and death a distant specter. Killing a man, no matter how justified, had shaken Abigail to the core.
“You brought much honor to the Madden Clan with his death,” Trorm said, in the most soothing tone he could manage in a voice like gravel.
Abigail gave a sob and turned to bury her face in his chest. It made Trorm realize that he was wearing only his black boxer shorts. And that the girls with him wore very little themselves. This was not the time for noticing such things, but a part of him couldn’t help it. Both were lovely. Abigail with her dark skin, short, curvy frame and elaborate blue braids and Lilian, pale, athletic, and with messy, carelessly tossed up red hair, made a lovely contrast.
He did not allow himself to dwell on that, suppressing those thoughts down with an iron effort of will. It was not appropriate. This was not the time. His attention was needed in a different capacity.
He awkwardly patted Abigail on the back and glanced up to note an odd look from Lilian. She hadn’t expected Abigail to cuddle up to him. Because he was an orc? That was his first thought, but he dismissed it. The Maddens had expected that they’d be housing a female foreign exchange student and his arrival had thrown them for an uncomfortable loop.
They had adjusted quickly, and Lilian only held his decisions against him now, not his race. As a paladin of the Lord of Justice, Thodos, they’d had a few conflicting ideas about the way some things needed to be done. Always, though, their arguments had ended well and Trorm knew her to be a firm ally. So, what then had the look been about?
He wished he’d thought to grab his sunglasses. Originally, they’d been enchanted to help him understand human facial expressions. After they’d been broken, Abigail had not only repaired but improved upon them. They let him read the emotions of people he looked at. And apparently gauged their level of romantic interest in him.
Why Abigail had felt the need to include that last part still confused him and he still hadn’t gotten around to asking her about it yet. The emotion reading, however, would be very useful. Useful was what he was used to being. Sitting there simply holding Abigail with her sister and letting her cry did not make him feel useful. It made him feel helpless. And angry.
He should have been the one to kill Arlen. Not her. This should not have been her burden.
A shadow fell over the door. Trorm raised his staff, electricity crackling at the end, filling the room with the scent of burnt ozone even as Lilian produced her heavy revolver from somewhere. Trorm barely had time to wonder when, or even how, she’d traded it out for her sword, before realizing that he had a shotgun leveled right at him.
“Get off of her,” Trisha Madden, the girls’ mother, said voice cold and flat.
Trorm raised the hand he’d been holding Abigal with and lowered his staff with the other one, lightning vanishing as he released the spell he’d been preparing to cast.
“Thodos, Mom,” Lilian said, standing up and putting herself between Trorm and the shotgun.
Trorm blinked. Lilian had not even hesitated.
Even with her mother being the one holding the firearm that was still impressive. Guns were dangerous. A single squeeze of the finger and whoever was on the wrong end died. One slip, and your life was over. Trorm knew Lilian was brave. He knew she was his ally. He had never considered that she might willingly and without consideration, put herself between him and instant death.
His respect for her grew considerably.
“The door’s broken down,” Trisha said, voice less certain now as she raised the gun upward. “I heard screaming.”
Trisha was taller than her daughters, with golden skin, chocolate hair, and eyes that had a slight cant to their end, giving them an almost feline look. She wore a cropped t-shirt, a pair of panties, and had a belt of ammunition slung over her shoulder. Trorm’s respect for her grew as well.
It was difficult to think clearly in a dangerous situation, especially, he imagined, for a mother whose child was in danger. Trisha had not come running straight to see what the problem was. Nor had she bothered to protect her modesty. She had armed herself and made sure that she could continue to remain dangerous. Impressive. Especially for a human woman of peaceful Aflana.
Trisha adjusted her grip on the shotgun, resting the butt against her hip. The motion drew Trorm’s eyes to her exposed belly where a scar ran diagonally up from one hip across her womb. It was hard to say for certain, but the melted waxy-quality made him think it was some kind of burn scar
, though it seemed to have a sense of motion about it.
More interesting than the scar, however, was what it ran across. Trisha had a tattoo on her lower belly. The scar neatly bisected it, but Trorm could still recognize the All-Seeing Star of Xosione, the goddess of secrets and magic. Her followers called her the Lady of Hidden Light while some called her followers spell-eaters. Trorm wasn’t sure how exactly that worked but the name gave some inclination as to what her clerics were capable of. Or it could just be a metaphor for their perpetual hunger for forbidden knowledge, both magical and mundane.
Trorm furrowed his heavy brow. Human religion was not a strong suit of his, though he had studied it in an effort to become more culturally aware before coming to Aflana as a foreign exchange student. Perhaps he wasn’t remembering correctly. Trisha was a single mom who ran a pub. One of her daughters was a paladin of Thodos. There was no way she could be involved with Xosione.
“The scream came first,” Lilian said. “Trorm broke down the door to make sure we were safe.”
Trisha blinked.
“It’s my fault,” Abigail said, standing up. “Gods, I can’t believe…it was just a nightmare, Mom. I’m sorry.”
“No, I’m sorry,” Trisha said, sweeping into the room and pulling her youngest daughter into a hug. “It’s okay, Sweetie. Everything is okay. There’s nothing to be embarrassed about.”
“I apologize for the door,” Trorm said. The shotgun wasn’t pointed at him anymore, but he wasn’t going to move until they gave him permission. “I will replace it.”
And that would be another chunk of change down the drain. He was on a full ride football scholarship, but money was still an issue. He’d thought he’d come over with plenty and he still had enough to get by. But it wasn’t growing. Especially not since he enjoyed taking Winnie out.
Trisha looked back at him, her face contorted in an expression Trorm did not recognize. He really wished he had his sunglasses.
Trisha dropped to her knees and threw her arms around him, casually minding the gun so it didn’t point at anyone with the kind of ease only someone who’s spent time handling their weapon of choice would be familiar with. “You came in here to protect my baby girls,” she said, hugging him tight. “Thank you.”
“Mom,” Lilian said, in a tone of exasperated frustration Trorm had become familiar enough with to recognize instantly. “We’re not exactly helpless here.”
“I am so sorry,” Trisha said. “I shouldn’t have pointed the gun at you. I…I assumed again. I—gods above, I am so sorry, Trorm. We’re lucky to have you here.”
She released him and pulled back. “Please forgive me.”
Trorm shrugged. “Forgiven.”
It wasn’t as if there was much else he could do. His stay in the United Confederation of Aflana was entirely at the will of these women. If they decided that things weren’t working out with him, they could send him back to the Glorious Horde, no questions asked, and his arcane aspirations would be shot to the frozen hells.
“Okay, good,” she said, slowly rising to her feet and apparently remembering for the first time that she was dressed only in an ammunition belt and a few scraps of cloth. “I’m going to go put something more appropriate on.”
Abigail giggled. All three of them turned to look at her. She giggled louder.
“Sorry, it’s just…” she started laughing harder and waved a hand in front of her, as if brushing something aside.
Trorm caught Lilian and Trisha exchanging a look that clearly meant something. Whatever it was, the meaning was lost. A human thing or a woman thing, he wondered. Or perhaps a Madden thing. These three were hardly typical of their race or their sex, though Trorm was beginning to wonder if there was such a thing as a typical human or typical woman.
“We can move the futon into my room,” Trorm said, as Abigail regained control of herself. Whatever it was that had made her start laughing eluded him, so he focused on being useful. “The door is still on and the two of you can have your privacy.”
For some reason that made Abigail giggle harder.
“Are you all right?” Trisha asked her daughter.
“No,” Abigail said, calming down. “No, I’m not. But I will be. You all are taking care of me. Thanks.”
She hugged Lilian, then Trisha, then finally Trorm. As she pulled away, she planted a kiss on his cheek. Trorm felt his face grow hot.
A quick glance around revealed that neither Trisha nor Lilian had noticed in the shadows. Not for the first time he was grateful the gods had seen fit to not bless humans with the same night vision they had orcs.
Chapter Two
Trorm Coldstorm had battled monsters and rogue mages. He had spent a lifetime fighting as the unlucky sixth son of his father in a culture that prided itself on physical prowess and aggression. He was a wizard who unraveled the secrets of creation itself and bent them to his will. Standing before this dimly lit class of students with a power point presentation glowing on the rollout screen behind him, next to Nymal and Tibbs, Torm Coldstorm had never been more terrified in his life.
His knees felt as if they were ready to give out at any moment. The soles of his feet and palms of his hands tingled so that his footing felt unstable and it seemed to him that he might lose his grip on his staff at any moment. His stomach was imploding, shriveling in on itself in an effort to wither away into nothing.
Worse though, was his tongue. It refused to obey him, becoming leaden in his mouth and sticking in place. Trorm prided himself on his ability to speak clearly and precisely. It was a habit that he had deliberately cultivated and ingrained into his very being. It set him apart from his brothers and marked him as an intellectual, not just another meathead, enabling him to defy the expectations other races placed upon him.
Standing there before his classmates presenting their group project, his words utterly and completely failed him. All Trorm could do was stand there, paralyzed, as Tibbs and Nymal spoke. Every time it was his turn, he’d open his mouth and a grunting sound would come out, making what few words he managed to string together into a sentence unintelligible gibberish. Nymal had to step in twice to clarify what he said and one time none of them, not even Trorm himself, had any idea what he’d meant to say.
This was particularly unfortunate since he’d been the mastermind behind their original spell template project. The theory behind it was much too advanced for Tibbs and the recombination of arcane energies was outside of Nymal’s areas of expertise, since she specialized in the schools of transmutation, illusion, and divination. Their shared skill in the divination school of magic had been the original starting point, but energy had simply been so much easier to use to prove their theory than divination.
When the presentation ended, the group received a sad smattering of applause. The two other elves in the class looked especially disdainful. None of them had been happy to have Trorm in the class to begin with and since Nymal had “come out”—a metaphor Trorm wasn’t sure he understood—as trans after the incident a few weeks ago, they’d turned borderline hostile. Elves had slow reproductive cycles and any of their number who might handicap that process, by taking feminizing hormones for example, was not met with warmth.
Professor Lancaster cleared his throat and gave them a once over. “Thank you, Nymal for that presentation. I know you are eager to prove yourself, but perhaps next time, select a subject that everyone in your group can understand.”
“Actually, Trorm selected the subject,” Nymal said, far more hesitant now than when she’d been speaking before. Her transformation over the last weeks had been enormous. Trorm had come to the conclusion that she’d been using minor illusions to conceal the full extent of her hormone regimen. Looking at her now in her miniskirt and long hair done up in an elaborate braid, there was no question that the gender icon presented next to her by his enchanted sunglasses was anything but correct.
“Then perhaps next time you should choose,” the professor s
aid. “Remember everyone, this is a GROUP project. That means everyone pulls their own weight.”
Trorm winced. That was his sole concession to the crushing feeling pressing down on each of his internal organs. At the very least the professor would have to read his paper and it would become clear that Trorm did in fact understand the subject matter. Assuming that he didn’t think Nymal had written it for him. They’d traded enough notes and looked over each other’s work several times so there could be enough similarity between them that he might think so. Trorm sat listless and stoic throughout the rest of the class’s presentations.
When class was over, Tibbs gave Trorm a pat on the shoulder. “Got to go, man. Got a recording session this afternoon.”
Tibbs was on the verge of becoming a very good friend. A half-elf bard, he was the star of a band called Bananas Eating Monkeys and a YouTube sensation. The footage he’d gotten of them a few weeks ago had blown up his channel and driven up album and merchandise sales.
Outside of class and their group project, Trorm hadn’t gotten to see much of his friend. Nor, apparently, had anyone else outside of his band. Several girls Trorm had never laid eyes on before had braved coming up to him to ask after Tibbs a few times now when he was on campus. Trorm had never seen the half-elf with the same girl twice and had been utterly perplexed about how to answer aside from what Tibbs had told him, though he’d passed on the word.
“Take care,” Trorm said, trying not to let his glumness seep into the words.
“You too,” Tibbs said, and was off.
Trorm stood and collected his things.
“You okay?”
He glanced over to find Nymal standing just behind him. Her satchel was bulging with books and she held two more that she apparently couldn’t fit inside close to her chest.
Nymal Torquinal
Gender: Female
Emotion: CONCERNED. EMBARASSED.
Interest Level: 6