Jule sighed, and shook her head. “Not yet. The Bautul have recently put together a nursery, staffed by trained volunteers, which has been a great help. But until now, our most pressing priority has been safety. Making sure every orcling — and orc — is safe, fed, and accounted for. Making sure we learn from the failures of the past, and do better in the future.”
She shot Geva a wincing, pained-looking glance, and too late, Geva realized that perhaps… perhaps she wasn’t only talking about orclings, but about Kesst, too. About all those horrors he’d faced, after Rathgarr had left.
“But now, our next priority is absolutely education,” Jule continued, her jaw set. “With that awful war raging on for so long, so many orcs now aren’t equipped — or able — to give their sons everything they need, through no fault of their own. So we need to step up, and offer our young orcs consistent structure and support. If we can encourage their mental, physical, and emotional development, we’ll make this mountain a better, safer, and more nurturing place for all of us.”
Her voice had gone flat and determined, her eyes glinting with purpose. And this time, her glance toward Geva was questioning, or perhaps… pleading? As if she was asking…
But before Geva could find a reply, a small, whirling, yellow-topped figure swept out from a nearby door, and bounced excitedly before them. Another… woman?
“Oh, how exciting!” the bouncing woman exclaimed, her blue eyes sparkling. “Jule’s finally found us a new teacher! Youwillsay yes, won’t you?!”
25
Geva couldn’t stop blinking at the new arrival, her brain desperately struggling to catch up. Yes, this was a woman, a pretty, petite blonde woman, wearing a long belted tunic, a slim gold choker, and a beaming smile on her face. And in her ink-stained fingers, she was clutching a giant stack of papers, hugging them almost reverently to her chest.
And… she thought Jule wanted Geva as their new teacher? And she wanted Geva to sayyes? As in…permanently?!
“Ah, Geva, this is Rosa,” Jule was saying now, with a wince, and a rueful smile toward the blonde woman. “And Rosa, this is Geva, Rathgarr’s mate, as you’re obviously well aware.”
“Yes, indeed!” Rosa replied brightly, fixing her delighted gaze back on Geva’s face. “You’reallthe mountain is speaking of today, you know. And truly, howserendipitousis it that a qualified educator should arrive, just when we most desperately needed one?! If I weren’t far too well-informed to believe in all that foolishness about omniscient peeping gods, I would truly start to wonder.”
She concluded this with another bright, expectant smile toward Geva, while Jule winced again, and gave a frantic flap of her hands. “Er, thanks, Rosa. The thing is, though, Geva just arrived yesterday, and while it is indeed very exciting to have a qualified educator among us, she’s under no obligation whatsoever. And it’s becoming quite evident” — she cleared her throat, her smile gone distinctly apologetic — “that I was coming on rather too strong with this. My apologies, Geva — too much time spent with orcs, you know.”
Geva laughed despite herself, waving it away, but Jule’s expression had gone sober, her eyes intent. “If you would be interested in offering some guidance, or even doing some teaching,” she said, with a heavy emphasis on theif, “even on a trial basis, of course we would be very happy to discuss it, together with an offer of fair wages. But again, there is no obligation, and no hard feelings if you refuse.Right, Rosa?”
This Rosa was looking decidedly subdued, her ink-stained hands clutching tighter at her papers. “Yes, yes, of course. But” — she bit her lip, her pleading eyes turning to Geva again — “only imagine howconvenientit would be! You see, I’m our mountain’s resident librarian, and for almost a year now, I’ve been teaching adult classes in common-tongue and Aelakesh — the orcs’ language, you know, it’sfascinating— but there’s the greatest need for more, especially for those orclings. And there are still so many orclings hidden all over the realm, where it still isn’tsafe, and we know offering an accessible education for them would be acrucialincentive in finally bringing their families here. But I’ve just had a son of my own, and my mate is already run off his feet, so we just haven’t had time to expand into —”
“Rosa,” Jule said again, now with a heavy note of warning in her voice — and Rosa accordingly broke off, her eyes dropping, her slim shoulders sadly slumping. To which Jule visibly blanched, her gaze darting around, until it settled on the papers in Rosa’s hands.
“So, is that a new pamphlet, Rosa?” she asked. “From your hand-press? Perhaps you’d like to demonstrate it to Geva, while we’re touring down here.”
Rosa immediately straightened again, her eyes brightening. “Oooh, yes, it’s my latest!” she exclaimed. “Although I still need to improve distribution in Tlaxca, and” — she plucked out one of the papers she was holding, and brandished it toward them — “I can’t decide if this is too much?”
Geva instantly recognized it as a similar pamphlet to the one Rathgarr had shown her on the road, complete with block letters and a detailed illustration. But this time, the broadly grinning orc appeared to be… brushing histeeth?
ORCS: HEROES OF HYGIENE, the letters declared.Bathed, brushed, and sweetly scented, pleasing to even the most discerning of tastes!
“I really feel this could be our next big breakthrough,” Rosa was blithely saying. “Do you know how many humans haveabominablepersonal hygiene? We had no conceptionwhatsoeverwhat we were missing!”
Geva’s mouth twitched up, her thoughts lingering pointedly on Rathgarr’s excellent grooming, while beside her, Jule was already giving a gleeful grin, and clapping Rosa on the shoulder. “Brilliant, Rosa, as always,” Jule said. “Let’s paper the realm and see what happens, shall we?”
But that caught at something in Geva’s thoughts, and she felt her smile fading as she studied the pamphlet. “Though you know, it might be worth consulting with the orcs living outside the mountain,” she said slowly. “Rathgarr mentioned that some of the pamphlets have had unexpected… side effects. I’m sure he could offer some advice, at least? And he might know some places to distribute in Tlaxca, as well.”
Both Jule and Rosa were looking surprised by this — Rosa’s head cocked like a bird’s, Jule’s forehead furrowing. “Really?” Jule asked. “Our scouts haven’t mentioned anything about… side effects?”
Geva awkwardly shrugged, her gaze back on the pamphlet. “Well, the scouts likely aren’t making their entire lives out there, like Rathgarr was, right?” she said. “It seemed to me as though he had quite a large network, and knew a lot of goings-on.”
Jule had begun to look unmistakably intrigued, while Rosa was delightedly smiling again, and bouncing on the balls of her feet. “We will most certainly consult with him,” she said firmly. “Serendipitous, I tell you. Now, do you really want to see my hand-press?”
Geva did, of course, and soon found herself admiring Rosa’s large, complicated-looking contraption, which was surrounded by neat stacks of pamphlets. And once Rosa had finished her demonstration, she eagerly escorted them around the rest of the Ka-esh wing, which turned out to have the most varied collection of rooms yet. There was a laboratory, a small medical clinic, a clever sunlit reading-nook, and even a lovely little library, which apparently was managed by Rosa and her mate John, who served as a leader among the Ka-esh orcs.
And along with the new rooms, Geva was also surprised to find herself faced with multiple instances of orcs…enjoyingone another. Pressing each other into walls, biting at bared necks, groping blatantly down into trousers. And even — Geva had to take a moment to recover herself — one orc holding another orc over the hot burning forge by hishair, while pounding again and again into his bare, bent-over backside.
“Er, so is that kind of thing… typical, around here?” Geva asked Jule and Rosa, once they’d gone some distance down the corridor again. “In… public?”
Her thoughts had unhelpfully darted back to the memory of herself on her knees in the forest, bent over Rathgarr’s groin, when Killik and Ulfarr had found them… or the night at the inn, where Rathgarr had so blatantly given her thatdrink, and told her the other orcs wouldn’t even notice. Or even how Rathgarr had told her — just that morning? — that she didn’t need to botherdressing.
“Oh, yes, that’s orcs for you,” Rosa blithely said, her hand waving it away. “It can indeed be shocking at first, but you’ll soon become accustomed, I’m sure. Oh, and if you’re worried about the orclings barging in, apparently they have a very distinct scent, even at a distance, so it’s quite easy to avoid them — but just in case, we’ve recently implemented some new safety criteria, haven’t we, Jule? No obvious activities in the corridors until after nightfall, and any moreintensepleasures are always enjoyed in scent-marked rooms, which require particular permissions to enter, like the Ka-esh pleasure-den. Would you like to see, Geva?”
