Donwald Declares No Siege of Calimshan Until the Ballots Are Counted

The war has a schedule now. Seven months in, High Lord Donwald of the Golden Towers has announced that Waterdeep will not attack Calimshan at any time before the midterm ballots on the third of Uktar. After that, presumably, his calendar opens up.

The proclamation went out from the Ivory Keep by raven. "I want to make it clear to everybody," it read, that Calimshan is "in very bad condition, both Economically and Militarily," that the blockade "will remain in full force and effect," and that there will be no strikes until the votes are in. He called the talks "productive." He did not say what they had produced.

Now the part the press release left out. One day earlier, The Atlantean reported that the Keep had asked the Pentacle to draw up strike options it could use before the election. Another broadsheet confirmed it the next morning. Amnian crude jumped five percent in a single trading bell, to 105 gp a barrel. Then came the announcement. I have watched this maneuver from a trench. A commander gets caught sharpening his sword, so he calls the heralds and talks for ten minutes about how much he loves his scabbard.

The parley is barely a parley. Nobody sits across from anybody. Envoys from Lantan carry messages between the two camps, like quartermasters hauling cold porridge from one trench to the next. That means no handshake to inspect and no hidden dagger to check for. I looked anyway. Habit.

Calimshan's terms have not moved since the Grand Assembly of Nations last month. The Hormoth Narrows stay shut until seven conditions are met, starting with the blockade lifting and the frozen coin thawing. Donwald's terms have not moved either. The blockade stays. Meanwhile the Royal Exchequer of Waterdeep slapped sanctions on seventeen ships in Calimshan's shadow fleet and called it "the most significant blow yet," which, if memory serves, is what the Exchequer said last time.

The June truce died in a fight over who controls the Narrows. This one is a postponement with a polling date stapled to it. Tension holds at roughly eighty siege-days, and the clock now runs on ballots instead of tides.

I respect an honest enemy. A man who tells you he'll hit you on Tuesday is at least giving you time to dig. I have never seen a commander pause a war for an election and expect the troops to call it diplomacy. Commoners in Calimshan are eating less. Commoners in Waterdeep are paying 4 gp and 36 copper for a gallon of lamp oil. Neither crowd got a say in the schedule.

Ottoline Vex will tell you from her cushioned gallery seat that this shows restraint. Ottoline has never eaten a field ration. I have eaten four today, and every one of them made more sense than this policy.

Ironjaw, filed from the front.