Tenyii Striker

“Of my brood year I alone survived the agoge. Through my offering I took the oath and was bound by blood to serve at my masters side. When the Khan's men came they slew my master and took my sisters as slaves but those that survived swore that night they would not reach the valley road.

By twelve moonlit blades was our honor restored. By twelve blades were fifty heads taken, the rest thrown into the midden crevasse, the skulls returned as a sign. Losing one hand he offers the other, threatening us with fire. As a gift we offer those same twelve blades of which I am one.

We sail the void and cross the rift, biding our time and feigning service but there will be a reckoning. We shall have his head and the heads of all those who dared stir us from our mountain home.”

-- Jin Mayumi, The End of Empire A dozen generations sandwiched between the hammer of the Khans' cruelty and the anvil of the icy foothills of Kurguzd forged the Tenyii into reclusive deadly foes. Brought to the training creche from birth, taught to steal for food, beaten when caught and trained daily with the sword and spear as soon as they were strong enough for their hands to lift steel, the Tenyii clan were hard as iron and as fierce and silent as midnight on the mountain glacier.

When the Legion's heralds demanded a sacrifice of flesh and gold to open the rifts to the ways beyond, the Khan sent five hundred waadin berserkers to bring the tribe to heel. When a single horse returned bearing a sack of fifty skulls, the Khan threatened to burn the entire mountain to the ground. A dozen Tenyii Strikers were sent as tribute to spare the tribes and to satisfy the herald's call.