Guardian of the Night

11

Strictly speaking, considering the new organisation of the Watch, Bilain should have left this search for Ilivno, but the Kannai girl had another matter to deal with. With all the dangling threads of this investigation, Bilain couldn't leave everything to her new Sergeant of Investigation. Not to mention that what Bilain did now, alone, was the more difficult of the tasks set before them. Ilivno could search for the Tandari girl, Nishrean, within the streets and alleys where the people of Tandar resided, while Bilain looked to the north-east of The Sprawl and the haunts of far more dangerous folks.

Tandari, though once war-like and expansionist, had become a far more friendly people, especially those that had settled in Adrasusk, far away from the politics of their homeland. The people Bilain now visited remained closer in attitudes to the culture they had come from. Slaver cities. Ilivno would find nothing but hatred within this stretch of The Sprawl and none would speak to her. Not with any respect due to a member of the Watch and she would find no answers here.

Bilain, however, knew these people better than most. She had made it a priority, upon entering the Watch all those years ago, to get to know all the disparate peoples that called The Sprawl home. Never accepted by any of them as anything but a Watch member, she had, nevertheless, found a little respect from these people because, regardless of their views on slavery, she had treated them with respect.

As though mirroring the positions of their cities along the northern shore of the Inland Sea, the immigrants from the slaver cities made their homes in the same order. Idthirians first, Barathans the last and, between them, loved by neither of the others, the Mikinartans. The folk that once called Idthirion home were, to a point, the least problematic. Outgoing, friendly unless offended, Idthirians were more interested in riches than anything else, even here among the aching poverty of The Sprawl. But, they held their own counsel on anything. Idthirians would laugh and clap hands upon backs, share drinks and food, but would never loosen their tongues. Not even for money.

Mikinartans were less secretive, on the whole, unless it came to their own, where their mouths would close and they would say nothing more about anything, let alone about their kin. Speak of their neighbours from the other cities, however, and they would give any information asked for with little care about what the Idthirians or Barathans would think.

That left Bilain here, at the top-most edge of The Sprawl, where only the scant shanty towns of the Dragon-Kin sat before the fields that fed Adrasusk stretched out beyond sight. Past the Dragon-Kin shanties, to the north, the vast plain of Ganshorn's Field stood as a barrier to any more expansion, and the Ganshorn family protected their land brutally when The Sprawl threatened to expand any further.

Here, the Barathans had taken residence, beside the banks of the River Ban, at its cleanest and fresh before the detritus of the city found itself dumped in waters that became ever more sluggish the nearer it flowed to the Akaean Sea to the west. Some Barathans still fished those waters, though Bilain couldn't say whether the fish they caught were edible or not. Still, as she meandered through the crowds, she saw plenty of people buying those fish and they looked no worse for it.

Barathan culture fascinated Bilain. Once, Barathans would take the bones of their defeated enemies and made totems, weapons, jewellery and any number of other objects from them. That practice had, eventually, fallen away but the passion for bone possessions remained, though these days those bones came from animals, rather than people.

She needed a tavern, or a gaming den, in which to begin her questions. Though the three cultures, traditionally, hated each other, they did still interact. Card and dice games, here, would have people of many varied ancestries playing side-by-side. Drink always brought people together. But it was criminality that truly broke down barriers. Thieves, smugglers and killers-for-hire tended not to care about ancient grievances.