The Tyrant's Law (Dagger and the Coin)

race will be cast out and have no home.”
    “That’s lovely, Minister,” Ternigan said. “But these actions carry their own constraints. I have only so many knights. Only so many bows. Only so many blades. Overreaching is worse than failure. A collapse when we’ve outstripped our own support could push us back past our own borders.”
    “It will not happen so,” Basrahip said.
    Ternigan frowned, turning back to the map. His frown wasn’t that of an insulted man, though there was perhaps a bit of that, so much as someone reexamining a puzzle, apprehensive that some criticial clue had been missed.
    “Regardless,” Geder said, “the first part of the campaign is in place, yes?”
    “The blockade will be there,” Lord Skestinin said. “No ships in or out of the port of Nus without our men searching them, and no landings in the coves east or west of the city.”
    “Good,” Geder said. “And the foot troops?”
    “Ten thousand sword-and-bows are camped at Flor, waiting for me,” Ternigan said. “I have sworn statements from half a dozen barons and counts that they’ll raise their levies and ride in after once I give the word. I haven’t done it yet for fear of raising an alarm, but they should arrive just about when the first force needs relief. We’ll be the hammer that breaks the anvil this time, just you watch.”
    “I’ll repair to the west,” Daskellin said. “I’ll reassure Northcoast and Birancour that we’re only looking to secure our borders, and that Asterilhold’s done that in the west. They aren’t likely to care what we’re doing in the east so long as it doesn’t affect their taxes and trades.”
    “And the priests?” Geder asked.
    “They will travel with your army,” Basrahip said. “Where they go, you shall find always victory.”
    “Well, that’ll be damned pleasant,” Ternigan said. “Nothing goes quite as well as constant, unending victory, ah?”
    “I’ll want reports to me in Camnipol,” Geder said. “Daily, if you can.”
    “We’ll wear the courier’s hoofs to the quick, Lord Regent,” Ternigan said. “You have my word on it.”
    Geder nodded.
    “Well, then. Let’s make it official, shall we?”
    Without servants to wait on them, Daskellin was the one to clear the table, bring the parchments and the ink. Basrahip shook his head in mock despair and amusement. Making a thing more real by writing it down made as much sense to the priest as cooling something with fire, but Geder shrugged and Basrahip waved him on, as if indulging him.
    The pages were short, the wording simple and classic. Geder signed at the end, and then the others each took the pen in turn and stood witness. It took less time from the start to the end than it would to eat a bowl of soup, and after so many weeks of preparation, it felt both exciting and oddly a bit melancholy, as if the pleasant part of the work were over and the tedious stretch about to begin.
    “Well, then. That’s it,” Geder said as Daskellin poured the blotting sand over the ink. “War.”
    W ord spread through the holdfast of Watermarch like it was carried by the wind. The King’s Hunt was ending for the year, and those high nobles who had expected to retire to their holdings for the few weeks before the opening of the court season in Camnipol had news to carry back home with them, and tasks that perhaps they hadn’t expected. Geder heard the excitement in their voices, even when they spoke of other things—the cut of dresses and cloaks, the marriages and liaisons of the court, the scandalous poets and thinly veiled plays—everything was suddenly really about the war. There was almost a sense of relief that came with it. The victory over Asterilhold should have been a time of celebration, and instead it had become a nightmare. Even when the conspirators had been killed, their lands retaken by the Severed Throne, it had left a sour taste in the mouths of the victors.
    And in truth, even the battle with Asterilhold had carried a sense of infighting. The bloodlines of Antea and Asterilhold had crossed and mixed for centuries. The noble banners that faced each other in the fields outside Kaltfel had belonged to cousins, even if often at several removes. While there were some Firstblood relations in the traditional families of Sarakal, they were few, and when the nation’s name arose, the image it carried was of a Timzinae or Jasuru, of a chaotic government hardly better than a nomadic tribe with its shoes