Let them hate us, so long as they fear us ~Cicero

*Archos looked over the map of the confederation of Venway, Galen Thal, and the surrounding territory with much grimness, he said nothing for a time, then looked one by one at each elder* I have but one querry for thee. Be the Empire ready for another war.? *he knew the answer, but that wasn't really his question either, what he meant, what they knew he meant, was "Did they know what to do when the war was done?" Archos always planned for the end.

The answer was as he hoped. "We stand ready Ard Rhi." Archos nodded. One elder spoke up differently, a rare dissension, but nonetheless the truth was preferred over lies. "Milord, must we truly do war once again? it hath scarcely been twenty years and yet we go back? Tis unwise to fight the same foe many times." Archos focused on the speaker, he looked to be one of a wyvern breed, perhaps the offspring of a human and silver dragon. "We do nae go back to fight the same war o'er. When we go back, we do nae go back against an attrition based foe with huge numbers and an established base of operations in the area against which we must land by sea. Instead we go up against madmen, their minds be diseased with fanatacism, they do nae e'en in truth, seem to care what they fight for, only what they seek to go against. They do nae fear anything, and they hate everything. So we must go against them, that our Thalian relations be restored their rightful place. Do nae worry, for we shall nae fight this war as we didst the last one."

"But milord," he said, "will they nae come to hate us too?"

*Archos was silent, then he bestowed a sword toothed smile on his advisor* "Aye," he said grimly, "but let them hate us, so long as they fear us."

*the discussion ended, and the policy elders departed, and were replaced by the military elders, who began working on the upcoming campaign, only a scribe remained, whom Archos dictated a short message to, that he would have passed on to Dreadslay and Van Dresden, alerting them to the level of his preparedness and to some degree his plans.*