Read City At The End Of Time for Free Online

sometimes by leaps and bounds. Terrifying intrusions—streaks and smears of the Typhon’s nightmare void, breaking through to the Kalpa—were more frequent. Dozens of Ghentun’s breeds—most vulnerable, living as they did at the city’s foundation levels—had been destroyed or gone missing.
    Something in the Chaos seemed to be hunting.
    In the dark before wakelight, within a loud shout of the Tenebros bridge, teams of referees were sleepily clearing and roping off a fallow meadow, preparing for the games the breeds called little wars. Invisible—though not without some effect on the breeds around him—Ghentun made his way through the gathering crowds. He found a good vantage on a hillock, drew up his legs, and sat. Soon enough he would be on the move again.
    Another game was in play—grander and much more dangerous, not just to the breeds, but to Ghentun himself—but at the end, they might find the key to defeating the Typhon. In the meantime, the citizens of the Tiers did their best to live as they always had—bravely, foolishly, wisely. They were hardy folk. Whatever the circumstance, they found their amusements.
    The skirmish on the meadow was going splendidly, most agreed. The traditional engagement had begun while mist still draped the mounds and grasses. Five hundred breeds—divided equally into four tribes—began their contest at the sound of the judges’ horns, great jagged blats that echoed from the high, bright ceil.
    Jebrassy—strong and dashing in armor he had made from purple keel-husks—sallied out with eight pickets in like garb to assess the chances of breaking through on their opponents’ left flank, and there was a lovely, knock-all fray in dense fog as they met other pickets. All along, as he fought—giving many more blows than he received—Jebrassy had the uncomfortable sensation he was being watched. From the corner of his eye, wisps, puffs, interruptions in the fog that hollowed and twisted and vanished—distracted him. He did not fight as well as he wished, and perhaps that was fortunate, considering the damage he was already doing.
    Jebrassy and his fellows—Khren and the others—took to their combat with spirit, swinging their stravies with such conviction that few challenged them, and many lodged protests with the judges who glumly wandered in to intercede.
    The older warriors squatted with narrow, discouraged eyes. The good days were gone, they said, shaking their heads. Some felt the contests were not violent enough—others, that mercy and honor had been forgotten. They seldom agreed about much.
    Through morning and into evening, the war resumed, mounted with shouting and cursing and singing of martial airs, bluster, batting, torn hair, and flying spittle, until the ceil dimmed to brown and welcome tweenlight fell over the breathless, bruised combatants.
    The seniors loved to watch fights, as long as not too many were hurt—and Jebrassy’s crew was pushing that tolerance to the edge. Many groaned and limped away—and many more grumbled on the field and off.
    Jebrassy, by his own estimation, retired from the din in full glory, head bandaged, arm wrenched. In camp, he was dosed by a stolid medical warden, a drum-shaped machine with stubby lift-wings, now folded. Though almost faceless—just three off-center glowing blue eyes in an oval head—the wardens always seemed saddened by such goings-on, but performed their duties without chide or complaint. Sometimes, it was said, in the broad dark ports high in the walls or in the ceil, overlooking the meadows and fields, the Tall Ones, masters of the Tiers—in the naive conception of the breeds—watched these lovely little engagements and made judgments that would be taken into account when the Bleak Warden came to snip your final hours and fly you to the crèche. Some even claimed—though Jebrassy highly doubted it—that the Tall Ones walked among their favorite fighters, and if they were not doing well, clouded them in mist