The Battle of Marinica

**The speech of Netzae Tupaqi, on the day of the Battle of Marinica, as engraved on his tombstone:**

O, my kinsmen! All hail! There is an enemy who outnumbers us thrice over, and we shall win! There is an enemy who seeks to murder our children and take our wives as prizes! Do they not know that our wives will crush them beneath their heels before yielding their sovereignty? Yet even this is a dream, for we will defeat them here! What fools they must be to fight the proud Zjaum of Mliza!

Do they have strength over us? Do they have numbers over us? Of course! Then how beautiful will it be to shatter their dreams! To cripple the fist of our enemy and to punch his teeth! For we have a strong wit, and a strong will! We never wanted war because we never cared, but oh, my companions, we will enjoy this war today! We will never wish this war to end!

Companions, history will be kind to us, as surely as I live! For, my brethren, I will die on this battlefield before I see the likes of them disturb our peaceful soil! For our land is too noble for their soldiers and their tongues! Indeed! They call us traitors! They call us Zjau-yl! I say, if cowardice behind numbers and abuse of the peaceful is their way, then may I henceforth be known as Zjau-yl!

So strike axes! March men! Fly nets! O, brethren, Takaka Tan' Tupaqi [War is Glorious]! Za'zael K'shim-poia! We have yet to claim a victory!

**The Battle of Marinica, as reconstructed from multiple accounts of both victor and victim armies:**

*Right and left will be from the perspective of the Zjau-yl army*.

The Lido-wa army was split into six battalions with giants, men, and dwarves evenly distributed amongst them, symbolically representing the six tribes standing united against the Zjau-yl. The Zjau-yl army was also split into three armies: exclusively, giants, men, and dwarves. Netzae sent the dwarven army behind the lines and to the left, in the attempt to fight the Lido-wa's left flank. Seeing the opportunity to isolate the dwarven army, three battalions (the Rykt, the Zjad, and the
Ugo-yt, for historical reference) pulled off from the front line in the hopes of surrounding and defeating the dwarven army.

This created a flank in the middle of the Lido-wa line that the Lido-wa did not intend to create. Netzae pressed hard on this advantage, sending the army of men to fight this middle-flank. The untrained militia in the middle began to waver, and the right flank of the Lido-wa front was forced to rush to the middle to protect them. Netzae sent the giant army to intercept the right flank, sending both the right flank and the tender middle into disarray.

At this point, the dwarves, after shockingly outrunning the three armies, had finally tired and resorted to fighting the other three. The dwarven stance was defensive, to the point that no casualties could be made on either side. This siege went on for a half-hour, but at last the men and the giant army caught up, surrounded their foe, and routed what was left of the weary Lido-wa.

In total, the Zjau-yl lost a hundred giants, nine hundred men, and, shockingly, not a single dwarf. The Lido-wa, however, lost three thousand giants, eleven thousand men, and three thousand dwarves. This comprised a fifth of the adult men of the Lido-wa tribes, leaving their economies in shambles and resulting in the utter sovereignty of the Zjau-yl people. All hail the Zjau-yl Sovereignty.