Page 28 of Grumpy Pucking Orc
Thatstung. But before I could hit Eng so hard his nose flattened, Ugwyll spoke up.
“Rkwanalato who?” the other orc snapped. “There are no orclets to care for in most of our clans. None. No wives. No orclets.”
Instantly the mood in the locker room shifted. The lack of orc offspring was a somber fact that no one wanted to think about.
“That’s whatIwant when I go home,” Bwat said as he looked over my shoulder at the paper. “Dozens of happy, healthy, well-fed orclets playing in the center of our village. They won’t have to watch their mothers and sisters die. They won’t have to see their fathers waste away with grief. They won’t have to grow up and be adults before their tusks are more than nubs.”
And now the mood was downright funereal. Our heads lowered. Ugwyll slumped down onto a bench. Eng turned away, leaning his forearm against a locker.
“I understand why Ozar was playing with the human young,” Bwat confessed. “Every one of us would give a year of earnings for the chance to join a group of orclets on a play structure, even if those orclets weren’t our own. Each moment witnessing the play of youth is precious. We shouldn’t let the old rules govern us—not when we’ve lost so much.”
“Everything we now do is for our clans’ future. For our hoped-for children.” Ugwyll’s voice was soft and husky.
“And for our hoped-for wives,” Bwat added.
“For the continuance of the royal line and the stability of my kingdom,” Eng said.
I bit back a growl. Eng still deserved a good nose-flattening. All that orc cared about was his title and his inheritance. I’m sure he’d barely even look at his wife other than to bed her, and he’d probably confine her to a remote estate once she was beyond breeding age. His offspring would be raised by others and would most likely end up just like him. Selfish. Uncaring.
Instead of taking a swing at Eng, I stood and stretched. “Should we practice on the ice this afternoon? Or find heavy objects to toss back and forth?”
Bwat snorted. “Neither. I’m just here because the demon said we needed to be for a few hours of each day. As soon as the timekeeping device says I can leave, I’m going.”
Eng nodded. “Same. I might go to this place where Ozar found all the human children and see if any females would qualify to be my wife. They have proven their ability to breed, and I can promise them honor and wealth if they become my spouse.”
I growled, still thinking about punching Eng in the nose. “I plan on throwing some weights, then going for a run. Perhaps I might find a few suitable trees to climb as well.”
We all turned to Ugwyll.
“There are some booklets in the coach’s office with pictures of naked human females in suggestive poses,” he said. “I’ll look at those, then probably go to the McHenry for a beer.”
“Naked human females?” Eng grinned. “Can I see those booklets when you’re done? Just put them in my locker and I’ll grab them tomorrow.”
I scowled. “Those human females are wives or sisters or daughters. Leering at their naked bodies is disrespectful.”
Ugwyll shrugged. “Perhaps their culture is different, and they are happy to be leered at.”
“I’m the prince of the kingdom. They should be honored I’m leering at their pictures,” Eng announced.
Bwat was furiously typing on his phone. “It seems that it is the profession of some human females to be seen naked and leered at. There are even sites where males pay money to look at videos and something called live-streams of human females who are naked and who occasionally perform sexual acts.”
I was torn, appalled at the disrespect males showed these human females, but intrigued at the possibility of learning what human females found sexually appealing.
“How do I access this site?” I asked, feeling as if I were betraying all my female ancestors.
“I’ll text it to you,” Bwat said.
“Text it to all of us,” Eng said. “That and these booklets Ugwyll found might help pass the time until I find a wife.”
There was a loudthunknoise from outside the locker room. Escellates Johnson, the demon who owned the Tusks, burst through the door, waving a thick wad of papers in his hand. My heart sank, knowing he’d probably seen the image of me playing with human children on the front page. I was done taking shit for that. It was probably not a good idea to punch the boss, but I was in the mood to knock this demon right through the wall if he so much as said a word to me about it.
“Did you see this?”
He slapped me on the shoulder, then on the arm. I would have hit him back, but I was thrown off by the fact that he was smiling. That demon never smiled. Never.
“‘A Baltimore Tusks’ forward, Ozar, was seen thisweekend at Patterson Park entertaining local children,’” he read.
I growled, ready to punch him. Hard.
