[center][h2][u]The Zaqiri Invasion of Scalethein[/u][/h2]
[h3][u]The Standstill[/u][/h3][/center]

Potentate Yaka was under considerable pressure to satiate the Zaqiri people's love for war. Some wanted her to invade Ashkar, but the Ashkari proved themselves too weak. Others advised an invasion of Yossod, but the Ilist opposition was strong enough that such a war was never waged. Of the remaining factions in the world, only one was both within striking distance and known to Zaqir: the Scalethein Empire.

There was a great lot of doubt that the Scalethein Empire could present any real challenge to Zaqir's forces. Kobolds were known to be small and weak, even if there were a few famous warriors among them. The dwarves were not seen as much better. However, it was also known that the Scalethein Empire possessed huge tracts of land and a massive population. These factors would make invasion and occupation of Scalethein more difficult. Potentate Yaka came to her decision, and in 430 A.E. preparations for the invasion began.

The Zaqiri Invasion of Scalethein began in 438 A.E. with the arrival of a saurian delegation in Scale Home. They were initially greeted coldly, being that saurian raiders had long caused problems for the colonists around Far Home. The saurians presented gifts, however, and they brought with them some exotic fruits and turned out to be model guests. However, after a week of making merry with the kobold leaders, the saurian ambassador then revealed their true purpose to the Queen:

[quote=Ambassador Safina]In two years time, your armies will have the honor of meeting ours in battle. My Potentate shall come to your shores with our great fleets and we will throw ourselves upon your walls of flesh, together forging such a tale of blood and glory that the world will quiver with delight! So drink heartily and eat well, for we shall make legends of each other![/quote]

As enthusiastic as Safina was, her words did not bring cheer to the people of Scalethein. She departed the Empire that same day, leaving her hosts worried and mystified.

True to her word, Yaka waited two more years before launching the invasion. Zaqir's leaders prepared themselves according to Mazari doctrine, plotting out the best possible routes to take in the invasion of Scalethein. Their plan was simple: have the main force distract the enemy in the north while a second, smaller force pillaged the south. Yaka and the Circle agreed on this course of action, and in 340 A.E. the invasion began.

The main force was split in two halves, one half arriving by sea and the other marching from New Ilitscium and along the coast. The Scalethein defense forces were initially taken off-guard by the sheer size of the army: twenty thousand Zaqiri warriors swarming onto Scalethein land. They occupied the coast and besieged Far Home, but did not advance past it. Instead, Zaqir's army set up defensive fortifications at advantageous positions along the coast, clearing away swathes of trees to build their palisades and fashion together new ballistae.

Twelve Legions of Scalethein soldiers arrived to meet them, but very little real fighting happened at first. The Dominion's forces banged their shields and threatened their opponents from behind their palisades, and the Empire's armies jeered on back. Both sides maneuvered and postured quite a lot, trying to move into superior positions, but neither army could quite find that perfect position from which to attack. The Lightning Legion harassed the Zaqiri warriors, but Zaqir unleashed its serpent flies on the unwitting jungle fighters.

There were some skirmishes to be sure. Scalethein troops made every attempt to burn the ships they could with their blue fire, but they were hard pressed to do so; saurians patrolled every bit of the coast, and most of the ships were anchored some distance from the shore. Bands of Zaqiri fighters tried to force smaller engagements out of Scalethein to varying degrees of success, sometimes finding themselves overwhelmed and sometimes managing to kill a dozen or so kobolds and dwarves before retreating to safety.

Overall, neither side made enough headway to truly shift the battle lines. Smaller scale battles took place, but the brunt of the two forces did not clash as both sides believed it would be too risky to engage the other head-on. This would continue until news of Zaqir's invasion in the south reached the northern forces.

[center][h3][u]Lizards in the Hills[/u][/h3][/center]

When the Zaqiri host showed themselves off the coasts of Scalethein's easterly holdings, there was somewhat of a panic. The Empire had been informed of the impending invasion two years prior, and though preparations were made, there was an epidemic of widespread disbelief amongst the Senate and other administrative wings that a nation would truly announce their intentions to an enemy before embarking upon such a cataclysmic campaign.

Indeed, when a Kobold fishing vessel pulled up to the coast, its sails tattered and its crew battered, the Far Home Garrison did not immediately react. The incident was put down to pirates, even as the vessel's captain frantically proclaimed the arrival of a vast armada. Later that same night however, fires appeared on the horizon, and the garrison commander finally conceded that indeed Zaqir had come - true to its word - to wage war on the Empire.

The next week was one of chaos, as the titanic might of the Empire's war machine ground to life. Thousands of soldiers marched to muster, the Kobold Queen at their head; Twelve legions and two regiments forming the entirety of the world's largest professional army. Organising the logistics for such an army required super-human efforts on behalf of the army's leading officers, and every resource was briefly nationalised to achieve this.

The First Minister, Jorkik Ironstone, meanwhile remained in Uthein, and took on the colossal task of managing the city's war-time production efforts. Forges flared, markets emptied, and an ocean of wagons were loaded with weapons and armour to be shipped to the front. The population was mobilised, and the southern industrial heartland of the Empire plodded towards a state of total war. Working hours were increased to 16 hour mandatory days, forges were forbade from closing their doors indefinitely, and federal funds flowed into those establishments that were close to bankruptcy. The First Minister promised to have every smith in the city working towards victory, and by his heavy handed approach, he achieved this. 

In a single week, Uthein was able to churn out 20,000 spears and 10,000 sets of armour - testament to the city's true potential. 

However, not long after the Zaqiri made landfall, word reached Uthein from the mining town of Roktor, that an unknown host was surging across the southern plains, towards the Empire's mountainous borders. The First Minister instantly deduced that the Empire was being out flanked - caught off guard by an ambitious enemy that sought to exploit their narrow-focused preparations for the impending battle in the north.

Not wanting to take away resources from the Queen's army, and concerned that to do so would take too long, the First Minister issued Ministerial Decree #94 to the Senate immediately. Decree #94 called for the immediate consolidation of all fresh army recruits into a reserve force, and also called for retired veterans to face compulsory return to service, to act as officers. Additionally, volunteers from the citizenry were called up to bolster Ironstone's army. 

Within a few short days, the First Minister commanded 20,000 spearmen. They lacked missile troops, and they lacked experience; however, the First Minister was counting on his numbers, and his knowledge of the land, to drive away the enemy. After dispatching word to the Queen of the events of the South, Ironstone set forth at the head of his force. 

It took a week to travel the twisting roads of south-east Uthein, and though the weather was calm, Ironstone faced some frustrations and losses due to the perilous nature of marching a force through such terrain. Eventually however, his army, titled the Imperial Reserve, arrived at Roktor. Ironstone was dismayed to see that the town burned; its palisades had been torn down, and its structures with it. Columns of refugees - mostly Dwarves, but some Kobolds - fled towards the Reserve Army, and proclaimed tales of a terrifying reptilian army that had laid waste to the surrounds. 

Deducing that he was indeed facing the Zaqiri, the First Minister was surprised to see that so many of Roktor's inhabitants had survived. True, their homes had been set to the torch, and their earthly possessions taken, but by and large, they had been left unharmed. However, when a refugee gave detailed intelligence with regards to the Zaqiri host's direction, Ironstone realised they were heading for Thoktor - an iron mining town due south - and did away with his observations in favour of primal fury. "How dare these Lizards feast on the helpless!" He proclaimed.

Hoping to catch the Zaqiri in the midst of an orgy of wanton destruction, Ironstone force marched his army after them. However, in his bloodlust, he failed to follow Imperial Doctrine, and no scouts were sent ahead of his advance. 

As the Reserve Army marched through a narrow mountain valley, half way between Roktor and Thoktor, the Zaqiri host struck hard and fast. Human warriors hopped and sprinted down the sides of the valley, causing Ironstone's men to break apart to face this two ponged assault. And then swarms of Lizard-women, their gnashing fangs baying for blood, their hisses decrying damnation, struck the column from the front and from the rear. 

Ironstone was no commander, and lacked the skill to properly manoeuvre his men in time to form a defensive square. When all four sides of the Zaqiri assault struck, the Reserve Army was in total disarray. A bloody melee broke out - it was every man for himself - which was the type of fighting the Zaqiri excelled at. The Kobolds and Dwarves put up a fierce resistance, but they lacked the skill or the experience to turn their numbers into an advantage, and soon they were simply lambs walled in by four fronts of butchers. 

The First Minister was slain as he attempted to break out of the encirclement with his bodyguard, and hundreds perished in like-minded persuits. The Zaqiri were just too strong, and too ferocious, to allow their prey to escape. 

And then Senator Arnak Florin, a 33 year old Dwarf and youngest member of the Senate - a son of a banker, no less - took command of whatever survivors would heed his hoarse screams for coherence. A core of perhaps twenty Dwarves and Kobolds heeded his words, even as thousands of their kin scurried back and forth in a frenzied panic. 

Florin led his footnote of a force against the Zaqiri rear-assault, deeming it to be most plausible way of retreat, and broke their stranglehold with one chaotic charge of determined bodies. His men fell as they fought, trying as they did to open a way out for the survivors of the Reserve Army. Eventually however, Florin found himself cut off and surrounded by an enemy that mocked his every breath. 

They came at him, and he at they; his short spear found the padded chest of a Lizard warrior, and be brought the butt up to catch another in the face with such a force that he broke its neck. A third opponent raked his face with its claws, and punctured his stomach with a jab - Florin was said to have dropped his spear, and leapt at his foe. Heavy punches from a pair of iron gauntlets reduced the Lizard's skull to a pulp. 

By now, the Lizard folk had backed off - intrigued, it seemed. Three more of their warriors approached Florin, one by one, as if allowing him slightly fairer odds. The Dwarf picked up a crude axe, and continued to fell each opponent that faced him. However, his wounds got the better of him in the end, and after felling his final oponent, he collapsed to his knees and awaited death. 

The Zaqiri did not press the attack however, and instead, broke off into what appeared to be a hasty retreat. The battle ended as suddenly as it had begun, leaving a valley full of dead Dwarves and Kobolds - and a very confused Senator. 

The remains of the Reserve Army, a mere 2,000 Dwarves and Kobolds, limped back to Uthein in horrified silence. To many of the survivors, it seemed that the Empire's end was at hand.

[center][h3][u]The Battle for Far Home[/u][/h3][/center]

When the Queen Liika received word of what happened in the south she knew she hadn't much time. The Zaqir to the south would push north without anything in their way, and the Kobold queen would have to fight two different armies. So instead she ordered for her armor, she would lead the charge, ten legions would charge into the enemy, while the remaining two would be made to march southward in an attempt to stall the enemy. The two legions that would go would be the Second and twelve legions. Queen Liika was adorned in her iron armor, through she lacked her mace. Instead she held a long spear, and rode upon a mountain goat bred for war.

The ten legions would march eastward to the shore, the entire time soldiers playing flutes and drums, any kobold without skill with such instruments shouting and singing, the songs mocking the large (fat) lizards, their cowardice at not engaging in open battle. Queen Liika, at the front of the army, sang the loudest, not because she believed the massive lizards cowards, but because she knew they couldn't help but respond to the claims. And so they did.

On the shoreline itself was a battle of grand proportions. Twenty thousand Zaqiri, a combination of saurian, human, and even the rare Colbold or regulii. On the other side stood forty thousand kobold and dwarf legions. Both sides stood their ground, staring out across each other, forty yards between the two armies. The two opposed armies did nothing, not a word was said. And then, a single male saurian let loose an arrow that screamed through the air, and from that moment on it was blood and death and nothing else. The queen, with her armored bodyguard and her first legion around her stood her ground while the Zaqiri let loose savage boars, however the forces behind the first were not so stalwart. The front line of the Scalethein was in shambles, and when the forces of Zaqir swarmed in Liika and her fellows fond themselves an island, surrounded on all sides by Zaqir.

The lizard women were slaughtering the legions, however Liika ordered her first legion onward, ignoring the saurian swarming past and around them. Meanwhile in the rest of the Scalethein line boars and serpent flies went wild, killing without thought while their masters did the same. However one keen eyed kobold saw the first legion, despite being without aid and surrounded, pushing on and so the Kobold, a front line warrior by name of Klin, shouted out to his fellow soldiers what he saw, and the forces, inspired by the first legions bravery, quickly reformed themselves and began to fight back in earnest. It was here that the battle began to sway in Scalethein's favor.

Liika and her bodyguard and pushed their way all the way to the water, carving a path through the Zaqiri against them, even while the warriors behind and to the side killed them. By the time Liika had reached water over half her legion was gone, but the losses would soon be replaced, as the other surviving legion pushed through. The Pults, which had up to this point held their fire in fear of hitting allies, were given the order to fire. Moon's Flame was launched at the slowly retreating Zaqir and their ships. Though however most of the Zaqir ships were to far away from shore to be struck, the Zaqir warriors simply swimming away when they were pushed to the water. A few ships however, ships that had been brought up close to load up slaves and unload beasts were soon draped in blue fire, and the oil based fire was floating upon the water itself in wild patches. Night was falling now, the landscape lit by blue flame. The kobold forces watched as the last of the Zaqir ships sailed away.

Queen Liika watched from the height afforded her by her mount, staring out at the rising moons. It had been a long day, but it would be longer still, for the army, now reduced to four legions, would march southward to meet the second Zaqiri force.

[center][h3][u]The Trolls March[/u][/h3][/center]

Meanwhile, the mighty stone-trolls marched south to meet the second Zaqiri force. Nearly eighty five thousand troll spawn, led by five hundred trolls adorned in armor and wielding great maces. Roughly twenty of the troll army were older trolls, standing twenty five to thirty feet in height, and they too carried maces sized for their impressive frames. Marching into the lands being blighted by the saurians, the trolls soon found themselves overlooking a small dwarf village being raided by saurians, dwarven and kobold prisoners being tied down in rope or chains. Put into a rage by what they saw the trolls ran down in the valley that held the village.

It is reported that at first the saurian warriors, having never seen stone trolls before, thought that an earthquake was coming down upon them before they regained their senses. The first of the troll forces to actually collide with the Zaqir warriors would be troll spawn warriors mounted on goats and armed with spears and slings. The Zaqiri warriors quickly mustered however, forming a wall of shields that broke the cavalries charge, the troll spawn being quickly torn apart once their charge was halted. However, the warriors of Zaqir had little answer for the trolls that descended on them next. While the saurians had numbers, the sheer bulk of their enemy was enough to even make some saurian women falter.

The battle was bloody, but not long. Once the initial shock had passed the saurian warriors began to throw themselves into the enemy, each of them wanting to be one of the ones to take down one of the thirty foot behemoths that marched across the battlefield. After seven of the ancient stone trolls fell the others realized that the battle was no longer in their favor. While the Zaqiri were certainly taking losses the survivors were making sport of killing. After four more of the elder trolls died the remaining came to the conclusion that they had to flee, that the Stone Trolls had inflicted all the pain to the Zaqiri that they would. And so one of the ancient trolls stayed behind to ward off the enemy while the remaining eight fled with the remaining troll spawn. The army of Zaqir, while battered, had survived.

[center][h3][u]The Crimson Fields[/u][/h3][/center]

Queen Liika's forces had little time to celebrate after their victory in the north. News arrived from the south that not one but two armies had been trampled by the second saurian invasion force. Worse still, there was a political collapse inside Uthein, and neither they nor the trolls would be able to lend further support to the Queen's war with Zaqir.

Morale was high as Queen Liika began her march on south, but it quickly fell as the devastation became evident. Villages were abandoned, Rocktor and Thoktor were both destroyed, and the refugees had long since fled the region. The war had not treated the southern territories half as well as the northern ones. Scalethein's dead and their fallen troll allies littered the battlefields. Zaqir's dead were nowhere to be seen, and while in reality they had been taken to their ships to be given their death rites, rumors spread that the saurian women did not stay dead.

Liika knew better than to believe such rumors, but she nevertheless understood the Zaqiri army nevertheless posed a significant threat. The next battle would be a decisive one, and it would either spell victory or utter defeat for the Empire. Knowing what she did of the victories and defeats against Zaqir, Liika began fashioning together a plan. She knew she had to fight Zaqir in the open. If she fought them in the field, she could put her superior numbers to good use. If she fought them on their own terms, they would make short work of her army.

So when Liika received word from her scouts about the approach of Zaqir's army, she did not dedicate to an attack but rather to a retreat. She prepared her forces accordingly and re-positioned her army onto safer, open ground. Zaqir pursued her forces relentlessly, but stopped short of walking into their trap.

The Queen then marched out with the First Legion and began banging her mace against her shield, shouting a challenge out to the Zaqiri much as the saurians loved to do. Others followed suit, and the Zaqiri force was finally pushed into charging against the front lines of Scalethein's army.

The battle was a fierce one. Shrieking javelins and arrows produced a terrible wail as they soared overhead. Bestial roars and laughter shook the courage of those less experienced fighters in Scalethein's ranks. The enemy's force made itself seem larger than it actually was. But the battle was fought in the open, and as Liika expected, the sheer vastness of Scalethein's army proved to be the deciding factor in the battle. For every Zaqiri sword there were two or three Scalethein spears to face it. It became clear as the fight went on that the Zaqiri army was without a head, acting without true leadership; its various parts were working as individual bands of warriors rather than as a unified front, which was very unlike the Zaqiri army.

In the end, superior organization and greater numbers drove Zaqir off the field, and they fled for their ships. Despite their individual ferocity and prodigious size, the saurians were defeated.

It was not until after the battle that Queen Liika would learn that the Zaqiri force had, in fact, been leaderless. Both the Potentate and the Warleader had been slain in battle with the reserves. Perhaps this secured victory for Scalethein. Perhaps it did not matter.

Whatever the case, the war's end saw more than half of the Legion's numbers depleted, and the same was true for the Zaqiri warbands. The southern territories had been scorched by the Zaqiri horde. But Scalethein remained intact, the invaders were driven from her shores, and Queen Liika would forever be known as a hero of her people.