Viriconium Read Online Free PDF

with words or with his blade, he did not much care.
    He was early at the gates. Empty yet, the road ran into the rowans, to curve sharply and disappear from sight. A black bird skittered through the leaves, sounding its alarm call; sat on a branch and regarded him suspiciously from beady, old man’s eyes. The sound of hooves drew nearer.
    Mounted on a pink roan mare fully nineteen hands high and caparisoned in bright yellow, the first horseman came into view.
    He was a massive man, heavy in the shoulders and heavier in the hips, with thin, long blond hair that curled anarchically about a jowled and bearded face. He wore orange breeches tucked into oxblood boots, and a violet shirt, the sleeves of which were slashed and scolloped.
    On his head was a floppy-brimmed rustic hat of dark brown felt, which the wind constantly threatened to take from him.
    He was roaring out a Duirinish ballad which enumerated the hours of the clock as chimed inside a brothel.
    Cromis’s shout of greeting drove the black bird entirely away.
    He ran forward, sheathing his sword and crying, “Grif! Grif!”
    Grif gathered up the reins beneath the roan mare’s bit, hauled her to a halt, and pounded one of the oxblood boots with the heel of his hand.
    “Grif, I had not thought to see you again! I had not thought any of us were left!”

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    “No, Cromis, there are a few left. Had you not gone to earth after your sister Galen’s accident, and then crept secretly back to this empty place, you would have seen that Methven made due provision for the Order: he did not intend it to die with his own death. A few left, but truthfully a few, and those scattered.”
    They sat in the high room, Birkin Grif sprawled with a mug of distilled wine, his boots on a priceless onyx table, while Cromis plucked halfheartedly at the eastern gourd or paced restlessly the floor. The chink of metal on metal filtered from the courtyard far beneath, where Grif’s men prepared a meal, watered their horses. It was late afternoon, the wind had dropped, and the rowans were still.
    “Do you know then of Norvin Trinor, or of Tomb the Dwarf?” asked Cromis.
    “Ho! Who knows of Tomb even when the times are uncomplicated? He searches for old machines in deserts of rust, no doubt. He lives, I am sure, and will appear like a bad omen in due course. As for Trinor, I had hoped you would know: Viriconium was always his city, and you live quite close.”
    Cromis avoided the big man’s eyes.
    “Since the deaths of Galen and Methven, I have seen no one. I have been . . . I have been solitary, and hoped to remain so. Have some more wine.”
    He filled Grif’s cup.
    “You are a brooder,” said Grif, “and someday you will hatch eggs.” He laughed. He choked on his drink. “What is your appraisal of the situation?”
    Away from thoughts of Galen, Cromis felt on firmer ground.
    “You know that there were riots in the city, and that the Queen held her ground against Canna Moidart’s insurgents?”
    “Aye. I expect to break the heads of malcontents. We were on our way to do that when we noticed the smoke about your tower. You’ll join us, of course?”
    Cromis shook his head.
    “A cordial invitation to a skull-splitting, but there are other considerations,” he said. “I received intelligence this morning that the Moidart rides from the North. Having sown her seeds, she comes harvesting. She brings an army of Northmen, headed by her mother’s kin, and you know that brood have angered themselves since Borring dispossessed them and took the land for Viricon. Presumably, she gathers support on the way.”
    Birkin Grif heaved himself from his chair. He stamped over to the window and looked down at his men, his breath wheezing. He turned to Cromis, and his heavy face was dark.
    “Then we had better to ride, and swiftly. This is a bad thing. How far has the Moidart progressed? Has the Young Queen marshalled her forces?”
    Cromis shrugged.
    “You forget, my friend. I have been a