Herald of Steel

The fire started by Remus grew by magnitudes more than he could have ever imagined, fueled by wind and abundant dry kidling, thus engulfing a significant part of the city and alarming almost all its citizens.

Every single one could see the warm glow illuminating the horizon and turning the sky almost like the setting dusk as they all started to leave their residences and gather around the streets in the middle of the night in panic.

To them, it seemed like the sun had risen early, bathing the entire place in a warm, orange light, with the heat coming out from there actually feeling nice for those in the far back, as it made the cold, winter nice and snug.

Of course, at the moment, there was not a single person who was in the mindset to sit and enjoy this, as they were more concerned about the terrifying maelstrom that was spreading its maleficence all around.

It got to the point that even Lord Parker, who was quite a ways in the back was affected, and quickly getting reports from his scouts, decided to act decisively.

Turning to Achillas, he grimly ordered, "Call the men back! There is no point in them attacking the enemy anymore. They are not going to be back through any time soon. Instead, task them with extinguishing the fire. It seems like it has already gotten out of hand."

"....." And although reluctant, Achillas knew his master was right- the gravity of the situation did require the full effort of 20,000 men, much more than banging one's head against that choke point.

"Right away!" Achillas was thus quick to issue out the related commands, and then turning to gaze at the fire, cursed under his breath, "Does that Alexander bastard want to burn the whole city down? Imbeciles! Don't they know it is winter?"

It appeared as if Alexander had forgotten his own lesson- that Lord Parker would not dare set the surrounding houses on fire due to the chances of it going out of control.

Which was exactly what was happening right now.

And it took hours and hours, as well as the combined efforts of tens of thousands of men to bring the fire finally back to control, as it was attacked by hundreds of thousands of liters of water and tons of sand and clay, the entire endeavor taking the whole night.

It was only when dawn broke that the fire finally ran out of steam, having consumed all that there was in the vicinity and was no longer able to maintain itself any longer, thus slowly flickering down, leaving only the smell of thick soot and burnt wood that lingered heavily in the air.

And as morning broke to a significantly smoky charred city of Caira, it was only under the bright light of the auspicious sun that the true extent of the destruction finally became clear to everyone around,

Hundreds of houses, shops, and other landmarks were turned to ash, leaving behind only burnt skeletal remnants, that stooped and piled up into the sky like emptied out husks, and making tens of thousands of people homeless and destitute in the process.

The inferno had claimed everything from them- their clothes, furniture, money, personal belongings, and for some even the products they would sell and thus their livelihood.

Causing them all to only see pitch black darkness in front of their eyes as a general sense of desolateness hung in the air, mixing with the burnt smell to produce a heartbreaking scene.

'How were they going to ever recover from this? How were they going to live on? How were they going to get their next meal?'

Such and many similar questions roamed inside the minds of these people, as many sat right next to a pile of ash and dust, clutching their heads in anguish and despairing at what used to be their homes.

These people were literally left under the open sky with nothing to their name and could see little alternative other than sitting by the roadside and begging for the rest of their lives.

Or perhaps selling themselves to the slave traders so that the rest of the family could get to live.

Or for some, even having a few of their children thrown into indentured servitudes instead of them, thus getting a good chunk of money in the process- money that would help the rest recover.

And many actually chose the latter- with the daughters usually being the first choice, because they were seen as more of a burden.

The young fairer sex generally could not earn their share of the expenses or at least not as much as their stronger counterpart, who held more potential to earn a living.

So it was them who got the unlucky pick, and so over the following days, the slave traders of Caira got a sudden rapid influx of supply of their 'commodities', with a large majority of it being girls.

This inadvertently caused the prices to fall, forcing these already desperate people to sell even more of their 'assets'- and so many even lost their sons.

Most fathers did not feel happy to do this, but what was the alternative?

Keep the children so that they could all starve together?

And if he sold himself, then who was going to look after the family? What will happen when the money runs out? Who would provide for them then?

And perhaps much more importantly, Who would protect them while he was away?

A homeless widow and a few small children were the juiciest targets for any enterprising scoundrel, be it extortion, blackmail, or even straight up kidnapping.

And although this sounded tragic, and it certainly was, there were also people who came off even worse.

Such as those whose loved ones had died.

Now, fortunately, the fire had started in a relatively abandoned part of the city, and so the people had enough time to get to safety with relative ease, keeping the casualties fairly low when compared to the scale of the disaster.

But that of course did not mean there were no casualties, as people still died due to the fire or simply blind panic, round about 60 people.

And the kin of those people was now left with a hole in their hearts, left to wonder how they were going to get by without their father, brother, sister, wife, children, etc.

The clean up of the remnants of this fearful devastation took multiple days, as the charred ruins were slowly cleared, with significant aid from Lord Parker.

The man saw this both as a humanitarian mission as well as a great chance for some good old propaganda.

Thus at any time during the next few days, about 10,000 to 15,000 men in full shining armor could be seen moving about shoulder to shoulder with the general populace, moving the ash, removing debris, digging out the dead, and burying them, setting up makeshift tents for the citizens, and handing out free food.

If any impartial witness were to see the current without any context, they would have surely judged Alexander to be the wrong one here, and Lord Parker the hero.

And as a reward for being the hero, Lord Parker found to much his joy that not all the ships in the Great Harbor had burnt down!

Despite the volcanic fire like inferno, the surroundings were subjected to some had survived completely intact, and a lot more with only partial damage that the shipwrights promised could be fixed, and fixed relatively soon at that.

This good news was enough to even put the slightly down Lord Parker into a fit of euphoric laughter, "Hahaha! What luck! What luck! The gods favor us! See, this is proof! Even after such a huge fire our path is still not cut off. Hahaha, The gods favor us!" the man cried out towards his soldiers.

Who of course all bought this explanation, as they had seen the extent of the fire with their very eyes, and did not think anything could survive with that.

So the ships surviving this was seen as a miracle.

Now of course it was not a miracle that had saved these ships.

One reason for this was because Remus simply had not had enough time to properly set all the vessels on fire.

The unit that Achillas had chosen to board the ships with had managed to get to the harbor before the entire place could be properly put to the torch and thus the legionaries had to bolt a bit prematurely unless they wanted to be massacred.

And it was considering for such a situation that Remus had concentrated on getting as many ships as he could on fire and hoping that it would spread to the rest.

But unfortunately, it did not.

Which was where came the much bigger second reason- the wind that had started to blow inland.

When that cool sea breeze started to flow in, it pushed the fire toward the city and away from the vessels that were stationed at the back of the harbor, and thus many of the vessels were given respite.

Along with a few of the ships also possessing very clever sailors even boldly sailed out to the sea in the meantime, thus too escaping the grim fate.