An Orc at College: A Contemporary Sword and Sorcery Harem Fantasy Read online

  The waitresses screamed. Trisha ducked back behind the bar and came up with a shotgun.

  The slimian leapt up to the ceiling as she opened fire, tearing a chunk out of her floor. Another shot was dodged as it leapt to a light fixture, causing shadows to dance across the tavern.

  Trorm leapt to his feet, throwing himself between the thing and Abigail as he grabbed his staff and readied it.

  Another pair of the dripping creatures flew through the already broken window and another window smashed further down the tavern as still two more burst in. Five, he counted, then six. Then seven.

  One of the waitresses grabbed a bar stool, flipping it so she was wielding the legs like an improvised pitchfork. Clearly she had been in more than a few bar fights to pick up on that. She lunged forward, striking one of the monkey things in the chest. She slammed the stool’s legs down on it over and over again, each time eliciting a squeak and a gush of slime but no real damage. It was like trying to crush a rubber ball.

  The shotgun finally caught one of them and it exploded in a shower of pus and gore. Trisha swung the weapon around to aim at another creature and it clicked empty. She swore.

  The waitress with the barstool screamed as the tentacles of the one she was hitting sprouted barbs and lashed out at her legs. The short shorts that helped her get better tips offered little protection against the little abomination.

  Another one finally noticed Trorm and Abigail and came at them.

  Trorm had not been idle. He’d been studying the creatures. There was an otherworldly energy flowing from them. The kind that indicated that they had been summoned from another dimension and also provided them a degree of protection from the attacks of this world. Including, he suspected, magic. But there was a way around that.

  As the slimian flew through the air at Abigail, he stepped into it and thrust forward with his staff. The end caught the creature in the stomach, making direct contact but dealing no apparent damage. The tentacles lashed out, striking him across the face and sending his sunglasses flying. Blood spilled into his eye from the cut the barbs on the end had opened up.

  Trorm bared his teeth at the thing and let fly the spell he’d been mentally reciting since the number of attackers had gone up past five. Lightning exploded from his staff, boiling the slime off the creature’s body and making all those eyes explode like so many zits before leaping from its back to the next creature. And then to the next. And to the next.

  In seconds the Roaring Stag was lit up with a string of the eldritch creatures connected by a stream of electricity like the world’s most macabre string of holiday lights. Bellowing out a second spell, Trorm cut the spell off from his own mana, instead attaching it to the creature’s own shrouds of protection.

  The lightning went from white to flashing green and purple. The monster’s shrieks rose to fever pitch before they simultaneously exploded, decorating the Roaring Stag in slime.

  Trorm caught himself on the table before his legs could give out. He’d used much more mana than he’d intended holding that first spell in place long enough for to ready the second. Unsteadily, he grabbed the mug he’d been drinking tea from and downed the cold contents in a single gulp.

  There were screams. Curses. The waitress who’d wielded the bar stool had some especially colorful ones.

  Trorm looked up and met Trisha’s eye. “Are you unharmed?”

  She nodded at him from across the bar, shotgun still held like she meant to use it. Good call, he thought. They didn’t know if there were more of them outside. He hoped not.

  The door flew open and he surged upright, staff at the ready while Trisha swung around her shotgun.

  Lilian came to a sudden stop, gun in one hand, sword in the other. She looked around the thoroughly trashed tavern as they lowered their weapons.

  “What the hell happened?” Her eyes found Trorm. “What did you do?”

  “Lilian,” Trisha said softly, drawing her elder daughter’s attention. “He saved us.”

  Chapter Four

  Trorm panted as he pulled his helmet free and wiped his brow, wincing against the morning sun’s harsh glare. It was a shame his sunglasses had been damaged in the altercation last night. Abigail had taken them, claiming she had some ideas about repairs. He hoped so.

  He thought he was decent at reading most non-orc expressions but those were a helpful tool. Besides which, they kept the blasted sun out of his light sensitive eyes. That would have made practice so much easier. Now he was fighting a headache, though some of that probably had to do with their foul-mouthed coach’s shouting as much as the sunlight repeatedly stabbing his eyes.

  There were, he was discovering, many differences between orcish football and human football. Namely the size of the field and weight of the ball. Back with the Glorious Horde, the ball was weighted and the field was wider but shorter by several yards. Additionally, orcish football stadiums did not bother with the intense warding against spellcasting that the human stadium possessed to prevent cheating. Trorm found he couldn’t even manage a simple cantrip while inside the stadium.

  Fortunately, none of these things were terribly off-putting. Football was, at its core, a military exercise in territory control. When put in that perspective, the changes were actually somewhat exhilarating. And there were other things to exhilarate as well.

  “Hey Trorm,” said silky voice belonging to one of the cheerleaders.

  The squad had turned up in full uniform, including the bulky-headed costumed mascot that Trorm suspected was supposed to be some kind of horse, to support the team as they started the new season. It was a good thing the sun had been in his eyes so much during practice or Trorm would have found himself more distracted than encouraged. College cheerleaders, it turned out, did not adhere to the same dress code limitations of high school cheerleaders and the girl’s red and white tops and skirts were tight. And tiny. Everything about them practically screamed sex.

  The speaker was no exception. Curly blonde hair fell about her shoulders in artful disarray and her impressive breasts strained against her uniform top. She twirled one of her stray locks of hair. “I’m Clare. Clare Blanchard. It’s nice to meet you.”

  “And you,” he said, giving the others a careful nod. He wasn’t sure what the appropriate conduct was here and he found his mouth suddenly dry. Trorm found himself missing his sunglasses very much just then.

  Cheerleaders and football players were stereotyped together so often, but he couldn’t afford to make any assumptions. Human girls did not usually go for orcs. At least, not for a meaningful relationship. Some of his brothers liked bragging about the human tourists they’d banged. Only it had always seemed to Trorm that they were the ones being used by girls looking for a wild time. Since it didn’t matter to his brothers one way or another, he’d never made an issue of it with them, though he detested the idea of being used and tossed aside himself.

  “You looked good out there,” Clare went on, then with a mischievous grin toying at her lips. “I’ve always had a thing for quarterbacks. Think coach’ll put you in when the season starts?”

  Trorm shrugged. Saying as little as possible seemed to be the best thing he could do. What did she mean she had a “thing?” “I’m just a freshman. Coach won’t trust me until I prove myself.” As a war leader should, he almost added, catching himself at the last minute. Talking about battle and war glory was a good way to alienate humans, he’d discovered.

  “Freshman froggy!” Arms wrapped around his neck and nearly pulled Trorm over. It was an effort to suppress his immediate impulse to punch his attacker in the throat and an instant later he was glad he had, though judging from the cheerleader’s faces he hadn’t done a good enough job masking his expression.

  Arlen “Hellhound” Hunt was a junior and one of the team’s most famous players. Scouts for the International Football League had been scouting the wide receiver since halfway through his freshman career when he ran a ninety-yard touchdow
n. Arlen was fast, athletic, and good looking with blonde hair and the type of smile humans liked with his flat white teeth all close together. He was also studying magic, like Trorm, though the general consensus was that his arcane pursuits were nothing compared to his athletic prowess.

  Punching him would not have gone over well.

  “Freshman froggy!” Arlen repeated. “You’re with me, Erik, and Wilbur tonight.” He gave the cheerleaders an apologetic look, then started guiding Trorm away.

  Trorm gave a slow blink, not resisting. “I am?”

  Arlen continued to hang his arm around his shoulder and neck. Was it intended to show camaraderie or domination? Perhaps both. Humans could be very complicated about these things. A glance over revealed two other more senior players, both grinning at the cheerleaders rather than him.

  “Froggy?” Trorm asked.

  “’Cause you’re green,” Arlen said sagely, then his face fell. “Holy shit, that’s not racist is it?”

  How in the frozen hells was Trorm supposed to know? Dire toads could be dangerous and they were green, so he didn’t feel like the comparison should offend him. On the other hand, if someone was worried it might be racist, then it probably was something he should be concerned with.

  “I’m cool with it,” Trorm said. “But it would probably best not to call me that. We don’t want a PR disaster.”

  Arlen just about fell over laughing. “I like you!”

  “I’m honored,” Trorm said flatly.

  That made the cheerleaders giggle for some reason and he thought her heard one of them whisper something that sounded like “noble savage.”

  “Alright then! You are Disaster,” Arlen said dramatically. Too dramatically. Despite himself, Trorm was beginning to be somewhat amused by his antics.

  “I am?” Trorm asked, trying and failing to come up with a reason for this.

  One of the other players, Erik he thought, stepped in. “It’s tradition to make the new players earn their nicknames. Like, how everyone knows Arlen is Hellhound. We set this up ahead of time, right, so when we’re eventually on the news, we’ve got something we like instead of whatever the talking heads give us.”

  “A war name,” Trorm said, nodding in understanding.

  “Sort of,” Erik said, seeming unsure.

  He’d miss-stepped, Trorm realized.

  “Exactly!” Arlen said quickly! “A war name. That’s fucking cool. Anyway, you don’t get it ‘til you earn it.”

  “And how does that work?”

  The other player, Wilbur joined them. “It’s kind of dumb, but it’s like this. A group of us older players get together and set a challenge, something stupid, for a new player to do.” He gestured around and, squinting to see through the morning light even though his eyes had more or less adjusted, Trorm was able to see that he wasn’t the only freshman player being approached in this manner.

  “And the three of us, well we’re setting you’re task tonight,” Erik said.

  Arlen beamed and spouted off an address. “Be there at eight thirty.”

  “You mind texting that to me?” Trorm said and when he left practice twenty minutes later, showered and changed, the information was on his phone. Which was good, because it gave him a place to start his research.

  Trorm had never been as large as some of his brothers and as a wizard, he had learned early on the value of preparation. He’d done his best to pull more information from the trio of older players but none was forthcoming, so he directed his efforts to learning everything he could about them and the address they’d given him.

  There was a lot to learn. All three had more or less clean records. Arlen had gotten in trouble for underaged drinking and had gotten a DUI once, but apparently that had been mostly swept under the rug. Apart from that though? Nothing. It was the address that put him somewhat at ease.

  Not because of anything pertaining to the residence they’d given him, but because the house next to it belonged to one Ismael Hunt, a professor of conjuration at the Arcane Academy and Arlen’s own father. If human fathers were anything like orc fathers, Arlen wouldn’t try to do anything too drastic or dangerous where the older wizard might find out.

  Not once did Trorm consider not going. This was a matter of pride and bonding with the men he’d be playing besides. War brothers. Teammates. If this was to be a challenge meant to humiliate him then so be it. Veterans always hassled new recruits. Those that gave the worst were also often the best teachers and the most loyal allies once their respect had been earned. Assuming those veterans weren’t just a group of idiots.

  Trorm would give his teammates the benefit of the doubt. That didn’t mean he wasn’t going to take precautions. He arrived at the selected spot at eight thirty, as instructed, the sun already low and the neighborhood dark. The suburbs were an unusual part of human society that Trorm had never fully understood.

  Families with no connection to each other simply gathered and tentatively organized themselves by street and address. No forming of clans. No unifying purpose or task. Just a random hodgepodge of people. How did they trust one another? How did they handle the inevitable fights that would break out between families with so many different factions? If he didn’t know any better, he’d almost think that they got along by mostly ignoring one another, which made no sense at all.

  There was no sign of the others at first, then he noticed them sneaking around Arlen’s father’s house. They were all dressed in black with hoods up, which made him glad he’d warn black himself, though he hadn’t worn a hood. Trorm was dealing with too many preconceptions about him thanks to his green skin without subliminally hinting he was up to no good with his fashion choices.

  Did the others not realize he could see them? But it wasn’t that dark yet. The sun had only just set. Then again, human eyes weren’t good at night. Probably worse than his in the morning light. He wondered if the dark hurt their eyes the way the light hurt his. Would that be an insensitive question to ask? Pain was an odd subject to bring up among humans. He wouldn’t get a straight answer from his teammates anyway. Young warriors, or players as the case were, could not afford to show weakness as they established themselves. He’d not begrudge them that.

  They moved carefully, clearly attempting to sneak up on him. Trorm pulled out his phone and pretended to check something on it, then looked up as they drew near. “You know I can see in the dark, right? Arlen. Erik. Wilbur.”

  Erik stopped short and tripped Wilbur behind him, causing them both to topple over to the ground. Arlen, who had been in the lead and had not stopped, straightened up and smacked himself in the forehead. “Duh. Guess that looked pretty silly to you, huh?”

  Trorm shrugged. They didn’t need to know just how ridiculous they’d looked. If he’d been human it might have worked and their sudden appearance probably would have been startling. “What’s the challenge?”

  “Right to the point,” Arlen said, grinning. His teeth gleamed white in the glow of the streetlamps nearby. “I like it. So, that house over there.” He pointed at the one that belonged to his father. “It belongs to a professor of the Arcane Academy.”

  Trorm gave a slow nod. Arlen clearly didn’t want him to make the connection between himself and his father. Trorm would let him keep that secret for now.

  “Your mission, as a future wizard of the Arcane Academy,” Arlen said dramatically. “Is to sneak into his study and take the paperweight off his desk that looks like a golden stallion.”

  The stallion was the symbol of Saint Scrolwerds and the team’s mascot.Trorm nodded slowly. That made sense. He was to steal a symbol of the team’s unity and spirit. “Any rules?”

  “Don’t get caught,” said Erik.

  “What he said,” Arlen said. “Because we’ll totally disavow you or whatever if you are.”

  Trorm resisted the urge to roll his eyes, tucking away his phone, casually closing the app that had recorded their whole conversation. He’d been
careful to name them all. It probably would come to nothing, considering this was Arlen’s father’s house, but just in case, he had evidence of why he was doing it. And knowledge of preexisting relationships that would make things messy for them if he did land in trouble.

  With a nod of understanding, he simply walked around to the back of the house and opened the door. This was something he’d learned of humans in suburbia. They often locked the front door and expected that to be enough to ward off an intruder, leaving plenty of other means of entering their homes wide open.

  No alarm sounded and he snuck quietly through the living room and down a plushly carpeted hallway to a study. The challenge might have been more difficult if he hadn’t been able to see exactly where he was going and what was in his way. At the slightly open door to the study, he hesitated. This was too easy and they’d specifically mentioned him being a wizard earlier. A future wizard of the academy.

  Wishing he had his staff with him, he cast a simple divination spell that would allow him to sense the ethereal fingerprints of spellcasting. It wouldn’t tell him if an item was enchanted, but it would give him an impression of the kinds of spells that had been cast recently in an area.

  Unsurprisingly, Professor Hunt’s study was positively aglow with the lingering signatures of countless spells. Especially around a comfortable looking leather chair in the corner and his bookshelf. The man must like to cast while directly pouring over his tombs. On his desk, as promised, was the stallion-shaped paperweight, and as he’d suspected, it bore traces of a spell having recently been cast upon it. From the school of conjuration, unless he was mistaken. Considering Professor Hunt’s specialty, that made sense.

  He made his way into the study and began scrutinizing the spell. Most of his takeaway was speculation. That didn’t make him wrong. It appeared that a spell had been placed over the paperweight and that it required a trigger to activate. If it was a conjuration spell, as he was sure it was, that meant that it would summon something. In the study? Perhaps a monster of some kind, or it could make a cage appear. Either would be bad, doubtless sounding some kind of alarm, and the spell appeared powerful enough that he couldn’t simply break it.