But the pegasus kept on bucking; leaping, twisting, and kicking wildly. Obould found a rhythm in the frenzy, though, and gradually began to snap and jerk just a little less fiercely.
The pegasus began to slow in its gyrations and the orc king grinned at his realization that the beast was finally tiring. He took that moment to relax, just a bit, and smiled even more widely as he compared the pegasus's wild gyrations to those of Tsinka the night before. A fitting comparison, he lewdly thought.
Then he was flying, free of the pegasus's back, as the creature went into a sudden and violent frenzy. Obould hit the ground hard, face down and twisted, but he grunted it away and forced himself into a roll that allowed him to quickly regain some of his dignity, if not his feet. He looked around in alarm for just a moment, thinking that his grand exit might have lessened his image in the eyes of those nearby orcs. Indeed, they all stared at him incredulously—or stupidly, he could not tell the difference—and with such surprise that the handlers didn't even move for the pegasus.
And the equine beast came for the fallen orc king.
Obould put a wide grin on his face and leaped to his feet, arms wide, and gave a great roar, inviting the pegasus to battle.
The steed stopped short, and snorted and pawed the ground.
Obould began to laugh, shattering the tension, and he stalked right at the pegasus as if daring it to strike at him. The pegasus put its ears back and tensed up.
"Perhaps I should eat you," Obould said calmly, walking right up to the beast and staring it directly in the eye, which of course only set the pegasus even more on edge. "Yes, your flesh will taste tender, I am sure."
The orc king stared down the pegasus for a few moments longer, then swung around and gave a great laugh, and all the orcs nearby took up the cheer.
As soon as he was confident that he had restored any lost dignity, Obould turned back to the pegasus and thought again of Tsinka. He laughed all the louder as he mentally superimposed the equine face over that of the fierce and eager shaman, but while the snout and larger features greatly changed, it seemed to him that, other than the white about the edges of Tsinka's iris, their eyes were very much the same. Same intensity, same tension. Same wild and uncontrollable emotions.
No, not the same, Obould came to recognize, for while Tsinka's gyrations and sparkling eyes were wrought of passion and ecstasy, the winged horse's frenzy came from fear.
No, not fear—the notion hit Obould suddenly—not fear. It was no wild animal, just captured and in need of breaking. The mount had been ridden for years, and by elves, riders whose legs were too spindly to begin to hold if the pegasus didn't want them to stay on.
The pegasus's intensity came not from fear, but from sheer hatred.
"O, smart beast," Obould said softly, and the pegasus's ears came up and flattened again, as if it understood every word. "You hold loyalty to your master and hatred for me, who killed him. You will fight me forever if I try to climb onto your back, will you not?"
The orc king nodded and narrowed his eyes to closely scrutinize the pegasus.
"Or will you?" he asked, and his mind went in a different direction, as if he was seeing things from the pegasus's point of view.
The creature had purposefully lulled him into complacency up there on its back. It had seemingly calmed, and just when Obould had relaxed, it had gone wild again.
"You are not as clever as you believe," Obould said to the pegasus. "You should have waited until you had me up into the clouds before throwing me from your back. You should have made me believe that I was your master." The orc snorted, and wondered what pegasus flesh would taste like.
The handlers got the winged horse into complete control soon after, and the leader of the group turned to Obould and asked, "Will you be riding again this day, my god?"
Obould snickered at the ridiculous title, though he wouldn't openly discourage its use, and shook his head. "Much I have to do," he said.
He noted one of the orcs roughly tying the pegasus's back legs together.
"Enough!" he ordered, and the orc gang froze in place. "Treat the beast gently now, with due respect."
That brought a few incredulous expressions.
"Find new handlers!" Obould barked at the gang leader. "A soft touch for the mount now. No beatings!"
Even as he spoke the words, Obould saw the error of distracting the crew, for the pegasus lurched suddenly, shrugging a pair of orcs aside, then kicked out hard, scoring a solid hit on the forehead of the unfortunate orc who had been tying its hind legs. That orc flew away and began squirming on the ground and wailing piteously.
The other orcs instinctively moved to punish the beast, but Obould overruled that with a great shout of, "Enough!"
He stared directly at the pegasus, then again at the orc leader. "Any mark I find on this beast will be replicated on your own hide," he promised.
When the gang leader shrank down, visibly trembling, Obould knew his work was done. With a sidelong look of contempt at the badly injured fool still squirming on 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."