Orcs of the Appalachia
An entire orc civilization under the ground at our feet.
Not a cave system. Not some isolated pocket of survivors.
A civilization—with cities carved into stone that stretched for miles, infrastructure that made our subways look primitive, and a population that numbered in the hundreds of thousands.
Maybe millions. Nobody knew for sure because the orcs weren't exactly forthcoming with census data, and our equipment couldn't penetrate deep enough to map it all.
Of course, everyone freaked the hell out.
They were Orcs. Not the nasty ones like from the Lord of the Rings—they looked mostly human, just bigger, with green skin in shades ranging from mint to deep emerald.
And their eyes were different. Solid black with a single cat-like pupil of golden yellow that helped them navigate the darkness underground.
It wasn't.
Bullets hit orc hide and flattened like pennies on railroad tracks. The few rounds that did penetrate barely slowed them down. They weren't just tough—their bodies were built different, denser, like they'd evolved under pressures we couldn't imagine.
And they could fight. Jesus Christ, could they fight.
The orcs had been fighting since they could walk. You could see it in the way they moved, how they read telegraphed punches before they landed, how they turned our own momentum against us.
The president at the time, not wanting to start a war on US soil, took another tack—negotiation.
It worked.
The negotiations took nearly a year. The orcs wanted recognition. Legal status. Access to surface resources in exchange for mining rights to rare earth metals and gems we didn't even know existed at those depths.
We agreed.
It didn't hurt that the orcs were rich as hell. Being that far underground gave them access to gold and gems we could only dream about.
The land deal was unprecedented. Entire swaths of the Appalachian and Rocky mountains were designated as sovereign Orc territories.
The human population in those areas was sparse enough that relocation wasn't the nightmare it could have been, and most folks were compensated generously with Orc gold.
Of course, there were humans who decided to stay.
Orc's of the Appalachia beings with Jordan's Dilemma!
When ER doctor Jordan Bennett saves a young orc boy's life, only to watch him and his uncle driven from the hospital by her bigoted medical director, she makes a choice that will change everything.
Following them deep into the Nantahala National Forest, Jordan enters a hidden orc village to ensure her patient survives. What should be a quick check-up becomes days... then something more. The chieftain Ruka is unlike anyone she's ever known—powerful, honorable, and impossible to forget.
Torn between two worlds, Jordan tries to return to the life she's built. But when a deadly health crisis threatens the village, she must decide: the safe career she's always known, or the man and people who've claimed her heart?