[b]Pokash
Nobash, the Dry Season
February 4th, 2057[/b]

"DEATH TO VELUCA!"

"AVENGE BIG SPACE!"

"BLOOOOD ON THE MOUNTAINTOOOPS!"

Big Man Jash oozed with pleasure and other things as he watched the shouting troops struggle through the mire below. A major commander of the military branch of Pokash (incidentally, the country's only branch), Big Man Jash had no greater joy in life than that what he drained, mosquito-like, from the veins of a nation engaged in the delicate dance of war. He loved the fighting. He loved the killing. He loved the mind-numbing logistics of coordinating millions of weary troops. In fact, he liked it all so much that he felt he could sing. Big Man Jash waltzed elegantly over the bodies of his gasping subordinates and belched out his favorite dirge, and within minutes the army struggling below him took up the call with booming pride:

[center][i]A HUNDRED, A THOUSAND, A MILLION AND MORE!
A MILLION STRONG WE GO TO WAR!
LIKE THUNDERCLOUDS WE CRACK THE SKY,
WITH EVERY SOLDIER'S BATTLE CRY!

A HUNDRED, A THOUSAND, A MILLION AND MORE!
A MILLION HEADS WE'LL TAKE BEFORE
THIS MARCH IS DONE! AS ONE WE ROAR,
SPILL ALL THEIR BLOOD FROM SHORE TO SHORE!

A HUNDRED, A THOUSAND, A MILLION AND MORE!
A MILLION MILES WE MARCH TO WAR!
BACK TO OUR FAM'LIES AND OUR FIELDS
WE SHALL RETURN - ON FEET, OR SHIELDS!

A HUNDRED, A THOUSAND, A MILLION AND MORE!
A MILLION WOUNDS WE'LL TAKE, THEREFORE,
WE CAN'T BE WEAK, IF UP WE RISE!
A SOLDIER BLEEDS, BUT NEVER DIES![/i][/center]

As Big Man Jash completed the final pirouette, he let loose a primal roar that was soon taken up by the entire company of hatalmawsh warriors, energizing the hairy tripods into a berserker sprint across the last few miles of knee-deep muck. The big man knew that this first assault was a mere formality in the big scheme of things (which was his favorite scheme of things). The hatalmawsh suicide rush was tradition; no fashionable war was complete without one. And this assault, Big Man Jash mused with a gleeful grin, was going to result in more hatalmawsh casualties than any other assault in Pokash history. He definitely had a big, shiny medal in his future.

The nation of Pokash had been starved for war. It had far too many young, athletic, angry hatalmawsh men and women who desperately needed weeding out. A country couldn't survive if it was ruled by the small; that's why all those other nations needed to rely on their fancy, glowy, confusing technology to make ends meet. The hatalmawsh were above, or maybe below, such things. And Big Man Jash was going to make sure that the whole world knew it - starting with the Greater Union of Veluca. Pokash officials, particularly the largest and slimiest men for some reason, had wasted little time last month in letting fly with accusations pertaining to the spectacular, and completely anticipated, failure of their most recent satellite launch. Big Man Jash didn't possess the neurons necessary to wonder if Veluca was actually responsible for the explosion. All he wanted was to engage once more in that tiring, monotonous, spontaneously and intricately terrifying, and above all beautiful dance of organized warfare. First, he would conquer Veluca; this was the campaign Big Man Jash needed to secure his absolute dominion over the Big Men of Pokash, and once it was over, he knew no one would dare question his next move: Systematic domination of the entire globe. And then the solar system, if those damn satellites would stop exploding. And then the galaxy - and then, perhaps, the past and future, for Big Man Jash had seen a science fiction book once and had thought the pictures were very interesting.

A cry rose from the front of the line - the lead scouts must have sighted the Velucan border! Big Man Jash felt the blood boil in his veins, aching for the glorious, glamorous game of life and death, itching to be pumped by a three-chambered heart into the limb that struck each killing blow, crying out for release from a mortal wound. The hatalmawsh commander stood up on his rear leg and let out a ferocious battle cry - the hatalmawsh 'war language,' composed of grunts, shouts, and hisses, is arguably more developed than their actual language - a fearsome howl which roughly translated to "Kill all of those damn whoever lives on the other side of these mountains and then make the survivors burn their houses down around them." Big Man Jash's army took up the furious shout as one and broke into a sprint as they whirled their sharpened logs and wooden shields and flailing limbs to fall upon the Velucan border with a charge to rival Custer's own...