Guardian of the Night

5

Two things brought the varied peoples of The Sprawl together like no other, and never failed to cause great fear. Fire and disease. Typhus had spread among the populace not a year before, taking the lives of many, but Bilain had seen a great strength and resilience among her charges in those days. They helped each other. Cared for each other and took in children that had lost parents. Bilain had lost her daughter to the disease.

Plagues lasted longer, but once they were gone, lives could return to normality soon after. Fire, however, came in a rush, destroyed lives in instants and the effects could last for far longer. The, already limited, housing stock would become reduced even more, until rebuilding completed, leaving people on the streets, families broken, belongings gathered over lifetimes turned to ash.

But the people always rallied. Always came together. Casting aside differences, petty bickering. Crime fell, if only for a very short while. Rivals became allies against the onslaught of flame and smoke. Bilain saw that, now, as she arrived at the scene of the fire. Disorganised, chaotic, but they tried. She found Trenna Twice-Dead at the scene, carrying four buckets in his thick fingers, face blackened by soot already.

"Watchman! Report!" She took two of the buckets, passing them on to a rushing civilian. "How goes it?"

"I think we're lucky, Chief." She allowed his use of the word 'Chief'. This time. He looked exhausted. "It's a dwelling at the tip of Cornhatch Row and Goatrun. An alley separates it from the main block of buildings, but it is a fierce one, Chief. It laughs in the face of water."

Bilain allowed him to carry on. Looking up, she saw the smoke billowing high above the many stories of the nearby housing. Black smoke, thick as though the building housed barrels of oil. It roiled in the air, creating monstrous figures that appeared to glower down upon the slums of The Sprawl. The people had already set up a bucket chain, passing full buckets of water one way, empty the other.

It appeared they were lucky in more ways than one. Many of the wells that dotted the The Sprawl stood far from most buildings, giving them greater lengths of bucket chains to carry the water where they needed it most. This fire had erupted not a street away from the nearest well, in Backhold Square. Whether it could prove a turning point in the fight, she could not say. Not yet.

Turning the corner, Ghusz by her side, she saw the building and knew Trenna was correct. A gap, not wide, but enough, sat between the one building and the rest of the buildings in that area. One of the wider streets, enough to carry three people abroad, sat before it, but the fire had started in the uppermost story. The bucket chains were useful only to keep the lowest two stories wet enough to forestall the fire's progress. They needed to attack it from on high.

"Ghusz, get people with fire hooks in the surrounding buildings, high as you can. Drag off as much burning material as you can, push the rest inward. Keep the flames in that building and that building alone. We'll douse the material as it falls." She looked around to see more Watchmen arriving. More people. She grabbed one civilian. "Where are the flame beaters? Get them on all sides. Beat any flames down as soon as they appear."

"Yes, Captain Bil-Hook!" The woman ran off, back the way she had come, not seeing the scowl from Bilain at use of the nick-name. If the woman were in the Watch, she would have suffered for that, later.

It took long, agonising moments before the woman returned, with others, all carrying the flame beaters, wide leather straps, soaked in water, attached to long poles. Like beating ears of corn at harvest, the flame beaters would smack against any emerging flames, keeping them down until they could be fully doused. Bilain organised them in the surrounding buildings and soon saw the straps flapping out of windows against the burning building.