by Liam Lawson
An Orc at College
Book 1
By Liam Lawson
Copyright © 2018 Liam Lawson
Table of Contents
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 One
He was later than he wanted to be. The plane had been delayed taking off by over an hour and then he’d had trouble getting an Uber. The first driver to pull up had taken one look at him and then sped off. The same happened with the second. Sometimes, Trorm Coldstorm thought, it’s not easy being green.
It was impossible to be an orc and not be aware of the humanocentricities of the United Confederation of Aflana, but he had expected somewhat more tolerance. Or at least less fear. They allowed the therianthropes and other decidedly non-human races to become citizens, after all. So far, he’d only caught a glimpse of a single other orc hurrying through the airport to catch her flight, and eyes had followed him wherever he went. He’d even noticed a mother pulling her children closer to her as she hurried away from him.
Despite the long travel, he’d dressed nice, in the Aflana fashion, to make a good impression on his host family. A black button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled up to reveal his powerful forearms tucked into black slacks. None of the significant embroideries or artful tears that his people preferred. He carried only a single large trunk, a book bag, and his staff, which should have been a giveaway to any of these ignorant pinkies that he wasn’t some primitive savage.
By the time he arrived at the Madden residence, it was nearing nine-o’clock and he was ready to finally sit down and have some peace. Perhaps he’d review the Standard Guide to Spellbook notation. It was a good thing he was here on scholarship, otherwise the cost of all of his mandatory reading material might have left him broke.
The house before him was in the suburbs and looked like it had once been among the nicer houses on the streets. Things had clearly begun sliding into disrepair. The house was still nice with its red bricks and shuttered windows. It was simply in dire need of some TLC before those gutters were completely ruined and the shrubs came to life and ate everyone.
The door opened to reveal a pair of women, one close to his own age, the other perhaps a decade or two older. It was hard for him to tell whether or not they were related. The older one was what the humans called “white,” though her coloring was more of a tan, while the younger one was what they called “black.” Both were very pretty.
He bared his teeth in the human greeting of friendliness and warmth and extended his hand to shake. “Good evening,” he said. “I am Trorm Coldstorm. It is very nice to meet you.”
The older woman, with dusky golden skin, wavy brown hair and bright grey eyes that tilted up at the outward corners, closed the door. It struck the fingers of his outstretched hand. He stared at the door, then at his hand for a moment. He thought he knew enough of human culture to have gotten the greeting right.
“Mom!” he heard the smaller one exclaimed through the door, followed by some muffled arguing. Then the door swung open again and he was looking down into the face of the younger woman.
At six foot four, he was easily a good foot taller than her. She was short and curvy with a tangle of blue braids that fell about her shoulders and pleasant face in an artistic curtain. She wore a pair of enormous round spectacles that made her eyes seem huge. And they were lovely, dark brown things.
“Hi,” she said, extending her hand and brushing a lock of hair behind her ear. “I’m Abigail. You said your name is Trorm?”
He took her hand and tried not to crush it as they shook. Human finger joints didn’t stand up to pressure the same way orc knuckles did. “I am. Is this the Madden residence?”
She blinked up at him. “It is…you’re not what we were expecting.”
He raised an eyebrow. “No?”
They’d agreed to be his host family. Surely, they had known he was an orc. That could not have come as a surprise.
“We were expecting a female foreign exchange student,” Abigail’s mother said. “I’m Trisha.”
“Why would you think that?” he asked. He thought back to his application process and could not recall a single instance where there might have been some kind of mix-up.
“Because….” Trisha Madden trailed off. “It doesn’t matter. You’re here now. Won’t you…please come inside?” She stepped back into her foyer with visible reluctance, like she was letting a wild animal into her home.
“Thank you,” he said.
“Here, I can help with your bags,” Abigail said and moved to take his bookbag and staff.
He let her take the staff, hoping that might put the two women at ease, and then the book bag. When the strap left his shoulder, she nearly dropped it.
“Holy shit what have you got in here?” she asked, heaving it up.
“Language,” Trisha snapped in a way that put any doubts about her being the mother of Abigail to rest. Only mothers could manage that particular tone, regardless of language, race, or culture.
“Sorry, Mom,” Abigail said, and started toward a staircase that presumably led to the bedrooms.
He shrugged. “Text books. Spell book. Laptop.”
She looked back to eye the trunk skeptically. “Hate to think what you’ve got in there.”
Trorm allowed himself a chuckle. He hadn’t thought his bag was that heavy.
A short trip up the stairs and down a hall later and she was showing him to a lilac bedroom with white furnishings that had very clearly belonged to a young girl. He took a look around and then raised an eyebrow at her.
She laughed nervously. “This used to be my room. We thought we had a female foreign exchange student coming so we didn’t really change anything. Sorry about that. Ummm. Gods above this is embarrassing.”
He chuckled. “I’m sure there’s some reasonable explanation.” He thought about what she’d said for a moment. “If this used to be my room, then where are you staying?”
She grinned. “I doubled up with my sister across the hall. Cheaper than on-campus housing. She’s already a student at Saint Scrolwerds. I’ll be attending starting there this semester with you.”
“You’ll be attending the Academy of Arcane Ascension as well?” he asked, perking up. It would be nice to have a fellow wizard to study with.
Abigail’s face did a weird thing where it first lit up, and then fell. “Uh, no. No, I’m just taking the regular courses. I’m going to be a magewright.”
A magewright was not a true spellcaster or artificer that invented magical items, but rather a magical tinker who worked with magical components to enhance already enchanted items. It was akin to the difference between someone who designed vehicles and someone who repaired or modified them.
There was good money to be made in the profession and it was honest work. But after seeing her face light up, Trorm suspected that Abigail’s true passion lay in working with magic. So why wasn’t she enrolled in the Academy then? She seemed intelligent enough, though it was hard to make that kind of judgement after only jus
t meeting a person.
“Do you have any projects you’re currently working on?” he asked.
Her face lit up again. “Yeah, come over here. I’ll show you.”
She grabbed his arm and led him across the hall to a beige room with a feminine, but slightly more mature feel to it. Posters of bands covered the wall and a futon had clearly been a recent addition to the room. Over the head of the other bed was mounted a stylized sword with a scale balanced atop the tip, the symbol of the human deity, Thodos, Lord of Justice.
She pulled him across the room to where she had a desktop set up and then pulled up a tablet. “Here, here.” She booted it up and pulled up a white text document full to bursting with code. “See, this program?” She held up her tablet, which had some kind of drawing program pulled up. It was clearly hooked up to the desktop because the coding went grey there and was suddenly overlaid with runic diagrams and sigils. “I’m trying to put this ward directly into the code itself, rather than on a firewall.”
Trorm’s staff back in the lilac room suddenly seemed like a very primitive tool. “Fascinating. I thought protection wards required a protective intent in whatever it is they’re being laid into.”
“That’s right,” she said, beaming up at him. “And I’m having trouble with that. But I’m trying to get around that by….”
It wasn’t that Trorm wasn’t interested in her project. He was. Even if half of it was full of technobabble he only half understood. It was that his ears picked up the sound of Trisha’s voice, angry and trying to keep quiet, filtering over from the master bedroom next door.
“Yeah, I’m going to be late,” she hissed. “No…no…shut up and hold things together. It’s a weeknight. The bar won’t explode without me there for an hour…. That’s not funny! You do not get to joke about that. No. Yes. There was a mix up… I’ll be there as soon as I can. I don’t want to leave… Lilian should be back soon. Look just hold things down for a little longer. I’m coming.”
“So, it’s not about overlaying one with the other,” Abigail said, “So much as it is creating a third layer to unify them. See, I’ve got this other program here where I’m actually writing out both code and runes on the tablet….”
“Lilian! Where are you? Get home now,” Trisha hissed next door.
“I see,” Trorm said, doing his best now not to hear Trisha and focus on Abigail’s project. It was an interesting take on sympathetic spellwork. He’d have to talk to a professor about it when classes properly started. An idea began to form about how this might be applied to spells interacting with each other but it was driven out by the next words that came from Trisha next door.
“Isn’t there anything you can do? I specifically requested that if the student was going to be an orc that they be a girl. I understand that there weren’t any other orc applicants, but there were other applicants? I do not feel—no. No, I don’t want to withdraw from the program. I just want to… I don’t know, trade students with someone. Anyone. No… No please don’t do that. We’ll… We’ll make do.”
Trorm gritted his teeth and made an effort to keep his lips closed so he didn’t flash his tusks. The last thing he needed was scaring the one member of his host family that seemed to actually like him.
“So really, I’m not creating anything new,” Abigail said. “No truely original coding or spellwork here. All I’m doing is creating a meeting ground so that the two can communicate more effectively.” She turned up to him, beaming.
“That’s brilliant,” Trorm said, and then they both realized how close together they were. At some point he’d begun leaning forward and now their faces were only inches apart. Heat suffused Abigail’s cheeks and she looked away.
“Abigail!” Trisha’s voice came from the doorway, and there was nothing subtle or subdued about it now. “Out. Both of you, out.”
“Mom,” Abigail said through her teeth, glancing nervously up at Trorm. “You know the rule. No being alone with boys in the bedroom.”
“Mom,” Abigail said, rolling her eyes. “Really? Since when is that even a rule? And anyways, I’m in college now. That’s so high school.”
“And if you don’t like it you can pay for on campus housing.” Trisha shook her head. “No being alone in the bedroom together. I’ve got to get to work.” She looked up at Trorm. “Lilian should be home soon.”
There was supposed to be some significance to that but he didn’t know what it was. Humans were confusing. He tried his best not to take everything that he had overheard personally. It was hard and he wasn’t sure how well he was succeeded.
“Okay, see you later,” Abigail said.
When her mother was gone, she turned to him. “How do you feel about Netflix?”
After the day he’d had? “Turning off my mental facilities sounds like a wonderful idea.”
She giggled. “I like the way you talk.”
They had just settled down on the couch and pulled up some series about a desolate world where magic didn’t exist when the front door opened. A tall young woman, maybe a year or two older than Abigail walked in. She had long red hair pulled back in a ponytail and wore a long-sleeved t-shirt, jeans, and combat boots. Her figure was lithe and athletic, bordering on slender, an impression that was slightly ruined by her impressive bust.
She looked tired and was carrying something that looked like a sword hilt and part of a blade in one hand. He didn’t have a chance to get a good look at it, but he thought he saw some runes inlayed down that partial length of blade.
The red-head froze when she saw them, then with a flick of her wrist, the sword telescoped into a proper blade. Trorm cocked his head. That kind of mechanism would make the weapon incredibly breakable. Were those runes on the blade designed to reinforce it?
The sword was pointed at him and he quit wondering how it was made and started wishing he’d kept his staff with him.
“Abigail,” the sword-wielding red-head said. “Why’s there an orc in our house?”
“Hi, Lilian,” Abigail said with a cheery wave. “Put that thing away and come meet our new foreign exchange student.”
So much for turning off his brain and getting some rest.
Chapter Two
The academic advisor’s office smelled of cheese.
That might have been because the gnome woman sitting across from him had a stack of grilled cheese sandwiches piled high on her desk, sitting atop a precarious stack of manila folders and red-marked papers. She’d invited Trorm to partake and he had eaten one, just to be polite. It wasn’t half bad. It wasn’t half good either and considering the way the green and pink haired woman, who might be generously estimated at four feet tall, kept her office in a chaotic state of disarray, Trorm wasn’t sure that he trusted her food.
Professor Fifi Hympress had been blessed with one of those ageless faces that made it difficult to say for sure how old she was. In an orc or a human, he would have guessed late twenties or early thirties, but she could just as easily be new to adulthood or very well preserved. He was inclined to think the former, however. There was something of a youthful aura about the diminutive woman. Perhaps it was her enthusiasm. Perhaps it was the generous curves that he hadn’t expected a woman of her size capable of possessing.
As she was the first person since coming to Aflana that seemed genuinely happy to see him, he held back judging her youthful demeanor and instead focused upon her hospitality. She seemed genuinely nice and hadn’t stopped smiling, save for a brief faltering when he’d declined a second sandwich, since he’d walked through her door.
“Mr. Coldstorm—may I call you Trorm?”
He gave a nod. “You may.”
Orcs didn’t use the suffix “Mister” and only friends, family and allies were supposed to use the first name. That was not the human way, and subsequently not the way of Aflana. He supposed, however, that Professor Hympress should be considered his ally, so there was that at least. He’d have to get used to stranger
s using his first name.
“Excellent,” she said, clapping her hands. He half expected her to say “We’ll be the best of friends.” Mercifully, she forewent that particular phrase in favor of saying, “Then please call me Fifi. Are you settling in okay, Trorm? No trouble with your host family?”
Did she know that the head of Madden household had tried to get rid of him? That could be a mark against him. His position in this country was precarious enough already. One wrong word from the people he was living with and he’d be on the next plane home.
He decided honesty was the best policy. The truth. But perhaps, not the whole truth.
“They seemed to have expected someone else,” he admitted. “But we have achieved a successful state of cohabitation.” If a tense one.
Trisha Madden did not seem to care for him being alone with either of her daughters. To say nothing of the incident with Abigail’s room. He felt like a mongrel dog they couldn’t get rid of, one they expected to go rabid and bite them at any minute.
“Glad to hear it,” she said with a grin. “Now, I know you’ve already answered a bunch of these questions with your application to come here. But I want to start fresh and hear it from you, not some report. Also, the reports are boring.”
He wasn’t sure if her honesty was refreshing or disconcerting.
“So, from the beginning with the most basic question,” she said. “Why do you want to study magic?”
The answer was long and complicated. “I want to be the Arcane Advisor to my older brother when he takes command of the Glorious Horde.”
Horde Chief was a position he might have sought to attain were he not his father’s sixth son. Sixth sons were unlucky without a seventh and no matter how many other wives or concubines Trorm’s father, Bral Coldstorm took, he sired no more sons after Trorm. No one in the Glorious Horde would accept him in a position of their leadership, no matter his cunning or prowess. He was close with his second born brother Rore, now eldest brother since the death of his firstborn brother Graun. Rore had been proving himself for years and steadily climbing to power. He stood to be a Great Chief within the next five to ten years and Trorm intended to back him however he could. Unlucky he might be, useless he was not. Not by a long shot.