Page 1 of Grumpy Pucking Orc (Orcs on Ice #1)
Ozar
I glared at the bright white of the ice at the end of the tunnel, a low growl escaping my lips. I’d always hated the waiting right before a battle, that period of inaction until the call to charge was given.
Only we weren’t heading into battle, we were about to play a human game called hockey. Shirtless. With strangely curved sticks instead of swords.
“This is stupid,” Eng muttered in Orcish. “We came here to find wives and take them home, not waste time dancing around on knife-blades for human entertainment.”
Bwat shrugged. “Perhaps this is how we win a human female. Many species require the male to perform dance-like displays to show their suitability as a life-partner.”
Ugwyll snorted. “What we need to do is grab the first sturdy female of childbearing years and drag her back home. That’s how we show our suitability as a husband. Not dancing and not wearing these stupid fucking shoes.”
We all hated these stupid fucking shoes, but none with the white-hot passion of Ugwyll.
The orc faced the same struggle as the rest of us, trying to balance on the knife- blades that ran the vertical length of our shoes, but it angered Ugwyll far more than it bothered the others.
Ugwyll was agile and gifted in sports and battle, as well as being a scout of great renown beyond his clan.
Repeatedly falling while wearing these things called skates was absolutely humiliating to him.
It was humiliating to all of us. Except for Eng, that is, who had spent our one practice before this game leaning against the wall with a bored expression on his face.
“This isn’t a dance, it’s a fight,” I reminded the group of orcs.
“I thought it was a contest,” Ugwyll said. “Hitting the flat minotaur turd with a curved stick past the enemy team and into their nest.”
“Net,” Bwat corrected. “They call it a net. And the turd is a cuck.”
“Cuck.” Ugwyll laughed. “Isn’t that what the humans call their hand-axes?”
“That’s ‘cock.’” Bwat had been diligently studying the human language of English. We all had, but Bwat knew far more than any of us. “They also call their cock a Johnson, a dick, a penis, a?—”
“I don’t care what humans call their hand-axe.” Eng reached down to cup his, a gesture hindered by the large gloves he wore on his hands and the hard plastic device we’d all needed to affix over the area between our legs.
“Shut your mouths and focus,” I growled. “We’re about to go into battle and we need to win.”
A muscle twitched in Ugwyll’s jaw. He glared out into the arena as if that were the foe we were facing and not the humans twirling around on the ice like they were indeed dancing. Eng, on the other hand, just snorted.
“Right. We’re not going to win. First, none of us know the rules of this game beyond putting the minotaur turd into the other team’s net.
Second, none of us can remain upright on these knife blades for more than a few seconds.
There will be no winning. This isn’t a fight or a contest or anything we should lower ourselves to participate in.
You idiots can slide around out there for the next hour or so but I’m not going to make a fool of myself. ”
“It’s our job,” Bwat insisted. “We were told we needed to have jobs if we wanted to stay here, and this was the only job we were offered.”
“Don’t care,” Eng announced. “I’m not doing this, and I’d like to see the human brave enough to try and make me.”
It wasn’t the humans we needed to worry about, it was the demon who owned this team, and the angels who set the rules in this world. The days of raids, of plunder, of snatching human women and hauling them home over our shoulders were over. And that change couldn’t have come at a worse time.
The noise from the crowd in the stadium increased in volume, and I adjusted my stance, trying to balance on the knife blades without having to hold onto the wall. Eng was right—this was ridiculous. But I’d dance around in these shoes if it meant I could return home with a wife.
A wife meant children, and there was nothing in the world I wanted more than children.
Pudgy, green-skinned babies to bounce on my knees.
I’d teach them to fight, watch their tusks come in, celebrate their victories and comfort their tears.
I’d had no siblings, but I wanted as many orclets as my wife would be willing and able to provide.
Years ago, before the plague took the lives of so many, I would have been wed and have sired several orclets by this age. But with the deaths, my hopes had also died.
Humans had been compatible breeding partners centuries ago when orcs regularly raided the human lands, bringing their females home along with gold, jewels, and livestock. Many of the orcs in our tribes had some human blood running through their veins.
So here we were again. Leaving our clans and crossing the portals once more, but this time to only bring home human brides to have children with.
Although if some pillage occurred along the way, that would have been icing on the cake.
I’d expected to face battle. I’d expected screaming unwilling females. I hadn’t expected a group of winged beings to incapacitate the lot of us orcs as if we were newborns.
It was the first of what would be many humiliations.
We’d needed to agree to certain rules before we were released from the custody of the angels. No kidnapping unwilling human females to be our brides. No plundering. And jobs. The maintaining of gainful employment.
So here we were, in our gainful employment, about to participate in a contest known among the humans as hockey while walking on these knife blades.
An amplified voice shouted something unintelligible from the arena, and the crowd roared again.
“Go, go, go,” urged one of the human assistants from behind us.
Once more, I growled—this time louder.
I was Ozar, son of Meig and Oala, a skilled warrior and a Guardian of Clan Heregut, a Commander of my Squadron.
I wore the marks awarded to those who’d excelled in battle.
I had much to offer a wife. And if this ridiculous contest was what it took to get one, then I would perform to the best of my ability .
And I’d do my damndest to win. Because above all, I hated losing.
Letting go of the wall, I stomped forward down the tunnel into the bright light. My bare shoulders brushed the sides of the hallway. Humans reached down from nearby seats, touching me. Again I growled, jutting my lower jaw forward so my tusks were even more visible as I stepped onto the ice.
The stupid knife-blade shoes slid forward and I nearly fell on my ass, as I’d done the first and only time I’d attempted this.
Thankfully I managed to shift my balance and somehow remain upright.
The other orcs on my team exited the tunnel behind me, pushing me forward and sliding me across the ice.
Ignoring the din of the crowd and the shouting of the amplified human announcer, I tried to focus on slowing my speed so I wouldn’t careen clear across the rink and into a wall.
Most of the others didn’t have as graceful of an entrance.
Eng groped his way along the wall. Bwat shot forward and flailed about, eventually face-planting on the ice.
Ugwyll managed to remain on his feet until one shoe went wide and he fell backward.
The line behind him went down like those dominos I’d seen the humans set up, until the last eight orcs ended up in a pile just outside the hallway.
The roar went from cheers to laughter, and I felt a sharp surge of anger.
No. I could not kill the humans. Not unless I wanted the angels to send me back home in shame. Without a wife. Doomed to be forever childless.
“This way. This way.” One of the humans that worked for our team was ushering us over toward a seating area. Several other human support staff glided out to us, assisting the fallen onto their feet and helping them over to the box.
I waved off a human who was trying to take my arm and stomped my knife-blades into the ice as I made my way to our seating area, breaking off chunks and leaving scars on the smooth white surface.
This was going to be a long and humiliating evening.
And it would only be one of many. I sat in my chair, glaring at the human team and hoping that I found a willing human female to be my wife soon.
Because it probably wouldn’t be long until I killed a human, or more likely killed a few dozen humans.
And then my dreams of a wife and children would be over.