the ground, Obould walked away.
* * * * *
The surprise on the face of the frost giant sentries - fifteen feet tall, handsome, shapely behemoths - was no less than Obould had left behind with his orc companions when he'd informed them, to the shrill protests of Tsinka Shinriil among others, that he would visit Gerti Orelsdottr alone. There was no doubt about the bad blood between Gerti and Obould. In their last encounter, Obould had knocked the giantess to the ground, embarrassing and outraging her.
Obould kept his head high and his eyes straight ahead - and he wasn't even wearing the marvelously protective helmet that the shamans had somehow fashioned for him. Giants loomed all around him, many carrying swords that were taller than the orc king. As he neared the entrance to the huge cave Gerti had taken as temporary residence far south of her mountain home, the giant guards shifted to form a gauntlet before him. Two lines of sneering, imposing brutes glared down at him from every angle. As he passed them, the giants behind him turned in and followed, closing any possible escape route.
Obould let his greatsword rest easily on his back, kept his chin high, and even managed a grin to convey his confidence. He knew that he was surrendering the high ground, physically, but he knew, too, that he had to do just that to gain the high ground emotionally.
He noted a flurry of commotion just inside the cave, with huge shapes moving this way and that. And when he entered, his eyes adjusting to the sudden change of light as daylight diminished to the glow of just a few torches, he found that he didn't have to search far to gain his intended audience. Gerti Orelsdottr, beautiful and terrible by frost giant standards, stood at the back, eyeing him with something that seemed a cross of suspicion and contempt.
"It would seem that you have forgotten your entourage, King Obould," she said, and it seemed to Obould that she had weighted her voice with a hint of a threat.
He remained confident that she wouldn't act against him, though. He had defeated her in single combat, had, in effect, shamed her, and greater would her shame be among her people if she set others upon him in retribution. Obould didn't completely understand the frost giants, of course - his experiences with them were fairly limited - but he knew them to be legitimate warriors, and warriors almost always shared certain codes of honor.
Gerti's words had many of the giants in the room chuckling and whispering.
"I speak for all the thousands," the orc king replied. "As Dame Orelsdottr speaks for the frost giants of the Spine of the World."
Gerti straightened and narrowed her huge blue eyes - orbs that seemed all the richer in hue because of the bluish tint to the giantess's skin. "Then speak, King Obould. I have many preparations before me and little time to waste."
Obould let his posture relax, wanting to seem perfectly at ease. From the murmurs around him, he took satisfaction that he had hit just the right physical timbre. "We have achieved a great victory here, Dame Orelsdottr. We have taken the northland in as great a sweep as has ever been known."
"Our enemies have barely begun to rise against us," Gerti pointed out.
Obould conceded the point with a nod. "Do not deny our progress, I pray you," he said. "We have closed both doors of Mithral Hall. Nesme is likely destroyed and the Surbrin secured. This is not the time for us to allow our alliance to ..." He paused and slowly swiveled his head so that he spent a moment looking every giant in the room directly in the eye.
"Dame Orelsdottr, I speak for the orcs. Tens of thousands of orcs." He put added weight into that last, impressive, estimate. "You speak for the giants. Let us go to parlay in private."
Gerti assumed a pose that Obould had seen many times before, one both obstinate and pensive. She put one hand on her hip and turned, just enough to let her shapely legs escape the slit in her white dress, and she let her lips form into a pucker that might have been a pout and might have been that last moment of teasing before she reached out and throttled an enemy.
Obould answered that with a bow of respect.
"Come along," Gerti bade him, and when the giant nearest her started to protest, she silenced him with