Total pages in book: 30
Estimated words: 27313 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 137(@200wpm)___ 109(@250wpm)___ 91(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 27313 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 137(@200wpm)___ 109(@250wpm)___ 91(@300wpm)
We thought we were coming back to the home we left. Our race numbered only in the hundred-thousand when we were taken, living in seclusion in parts of what humans call Greenland. When we returned, through the Mobon’s cloning and genetic breeding program, we were nearly two million.
What we found when we returned, were humans everywhere unwilling to make peace. So many of my brothers and sisters perished in those first months back on earth, gruesome, painful deaths. My hatred for the Mobon is second only to the hatred I now feel for the humans.
I growl, snapping at the air, unable to keep my thoughts from the female human. The rage and heat that overtook me when I saw her has yet to diminish. What’s worse, the front flap of my leather kilt is standing outward, tented by the thickening of my mating member which has also not diminished since she stood at the back of the human home structure, looking at me.
“He’s got something else. Worse than hives.” Tigor, my younger brother and clan member, whacks the side of my head as I spin around and roar, hands curling into fists as my chest strains against the thumping heart inside.
“I will put hot coals down your kilt if you do not stop talking.” I thrust my hand into Tigor’s chest plate with a grunt. He is a comrade and one of the best fighters in our clan but I will not hesitate to silence him with a sharp whack to the back of his head with my ax handle.
I took an oath to be a leader of our clan once again when we returned to earth. The fracturing within the orc population took many tolls. It separated family, allies and made enemies into friends. But, the bloody battles that greeted us upon our return that left thousands dead have stopped.
Now, there is new tension between orc clans, the primitives versus the progressives, not to mention the orc hatred from the human population keeps us always on guard. There are only forty-six in our clan now, all under my protection. Many other clans and families splintered and scattered but I give everything, every day, to keep ours together.
After a year of warring and wandering, our group settled here in the human city known as Glenrose in the northwest. We have built our own structures, traditional in style, made from logs, branches and animal skins. Our claim measures a hundred human acres on an old golf course and country club bordered on one side by what humans call a subdivision. Thick woods boarder our territory, which we patrol day and night. Gates and stone walls destroyed long ago took their sense of safety as orcs and humans alike lay waste to much of the northwestern United States.
“You will end up with Judicial Enforcement coming back for you.” My mother looks tired, her soft gray eyes drowsy, silver hair falling across her lined forehead as she works on repairing the leather backing of a metal chest plate. “The human law makers said if you kill another of theirs, they will come for you. They took Pactra from the Varcha clan five days ago, no one has seen him since.”
“They have their laws and their courts but they will not have me.” I grind my teeth together, the image of the female from the house earlier leaving me unsteady. “They are criminals with badges, nothing more. I have axes and swords and spears. I left no one alive. Only body parts.”
My second brother Oran comes through the door. “The female is alive. She ran before—”
I cut him off with a roar. “Do not speak of her.”
The thought of any of the other males looking at her has my throat tight. I trust my brothers with my life, but if they put eyes on her, I will not hesitate to remove them.
“Female?” My sister Athaan comes out from her sleeping room. “I have heard there has been breeding between orc males and human females.”
“Never,” I say as my temples throb.
“Mol.” My mother stands from where she was working the leather and points at me. “You are the leader of this clan, but there will be no clan to lead if there are no matings. Athaan and I are some of the last females in our clan, and few others survived. The breeding program has begun in the west, I’ve heard of it.”
I think of all the females that perished on Iriaza. Something in the collars sickened most of the women. At first, we thought it was an anomaly. Then, we realized, male orcs without females are more productive. Less protective. Easier to control.
“Looks like his breeding program is starting.” Athaan stares at my kilt but I growl and turn back to the fire.
“There was one more alive, Mol.” Oran starts, changing the subject thank the iron gods. “I saw him. He went out the front. His head was shaved, he had an eyepatch and was limping.” “But, the girl has no reason to talk, she was there stealing. A human outlaw, although a very small one. Not as ugly as most either.”