Besmat-bey Ayad, fifth born male of Orkhan Besmat-bey Maymut of the Burning Rock Sept was sent to live with his cousins in Chiaroscuro at the age of 5, just after you had learned to ride. You had four brothers ahead of you and three sisters, two sisters and a baby brother behind you, but you were sent to the city as you had the most aptitude with the limited schooling available in the sept. Your initial years growing up had been harsh as there was much drought and strife in the hinterlands of the reach of the Tri-Khan. You rode hard and beat your escort to the city by several days, in retrospect a bad idea, but you were headstrong and a foolish risk taker, a trait that runs strong in your family.
Fostering in the big city was nothing like what you had experienced in the desert-scrub of the sept, there was no drought, no famine and the enemies of your sept walked freely and without fear. You learned your letters and your sums in the city and you learned how to play the teachers that tried to teach you. The goal was to do as little as possible and to still get the praises of your elders, but your true and most valuable education occurred when classes were over. You had been sent to Chiaroscuro to attend a prestigious military college, your father had misunderstood the entrance age because he thought that you were old enough because you could ride a horse, a task that many of your older peers lacked. The five years that you attended this college saw you grow strong and mature a little. It was your military mind that most gave you praise from your teachers. The afternoons were spent in drill and the early evenings were back in the classroom learning history, but it was on the freedays that you loved so much as the students played at war in the streets of the city.
The tradition started years before the eldest teacher was born and had continued unbroken since then, the teachers at the school had experienced it and watched the youth play at war and using the results of the competition to reinforce classroom teaching. For the first two years you were only allowed to participate as a footsoldier, due to your size and because no-one took you seriously. A chance at command in your third year changed that and for the next three years you took the lead of one of the five forces more often than not and in the last year you were undefeated, despite the other leaders strategy to go after you first. You used the varied terrain of the city against your opponents: you fought at the narrows of two known shadowlands near dusk, forcing your opponents to run off lest they became trapped, you used the trackless broken ruin of Bright’s Square, the legendary strike point of the Sword of Creation that ended the Fair Folk Invasion, to circumnavigate your enemy positions and you used the undermarket to disperse your foes and destroy them one by one. Each time you fought, you did what was considered the impossible to win. When your father called you back to the sept, your training was not completed, but your teachers assured you that you had all that you needed to complete your training on your own.
The journey back to your sept took less time than it took you last time; you were older and your skill on horseback had improved, but when you got there your people did not value your new ideas and prefered the old ways. In truth, many of the things you had learned were unpractical in the steppe. You spent the next two seasons relearning key survival strategies, so that you were able to spend the customary rite of adulthood and prove yourself ready to fight in the sept’s wars and struggles. For five years that is what you did until the fateful day that you took command after your eldest brother fell fighting desert nomads. The sudden loss of the unit’s commander almost spelled the end of the endeavour, but you were able to rally the troops and press the enemy for a costly but decisive victory. Your victory at age sixteen marked a turning point in your life, you were considered as a good marriage choice and several families sought you out. In the end you married Zuhayr-pasha Kifah, a minor noble from the sept with strong ties to Chiaroscuro, the dowry included a scimitar and Laminar armour made of glass. Kifah and your late brother’s wife Khadr joined your household and both bore you sons and daughters and your brother’s children you also count as yours.
Many years later, the undefeated war leader of the Burning Rock sept and heir apparent to your father, the sept encountered its greatest threat. A great war chief in the desert had banded together a great horde of nomads from deep in the desert. The horde included a hundred Dune Stalkers that scouted the way for the horde in exchange for a hundred captives from every raid that they could devour. The Leader of this horde was a simata riding Cataphract, Mercy’s End and her hundreds of Hobgoblin foot soldiers. The danger of this impending onslaught had forced the Tri-Khan to ask for aid from the Realm Tributary Legions, who complied, but the order was issued that the septs immediately in the way of the horde were to hold and engage so as to slow the horde’s progress down so aid could arrive; this meant that the Burning Rock sept was sure to be destroyed, but hold the sept did.
Your victories in the field over the past twelve years caused your tree neighbouring septs to form an alliance with you and they together with your men stood to face this threat. The Dune Stalkers were a more mundane threat, one that every veteran warrior had faced at least once before and this threat was weathered with ease, but the other threat was not. The alliance lasted through the night, but as day broke most of the men lay dead or dying. Your wounds had left you lightheaded and your armour rent in places. As dawn broke the Cataphract breached the wall of men before you, tossing their sundered frames in a wave over top of you, you heard words clear as the new day, “Rise up and vanquish the Foes of Creation, for I am the Unconquered Sun and I Exalt you!” A rush of energy filled you and in Dawn’s light filled you and rose from you. The image of a Great Desert Lion rose from around you at its image put most of your foes to flight. The Iconic Anima did other things too, the Simata that Mercy’s End was upon reared and threw his rider and rounded on him joining your side. Mercy’s End turned and as if seeing you for the first time laughed in hysteria and drew forth his matched Gossamer blades and bore down on you. The battle was brief and you carried the day.
The Tri-Khan’s army, who rode through the night, turned and ran down all the remaining foes, the Realm Legions did not. They turned upon you, tired from the fight, and attempted to bring you down. The remaining troops of the Burning Rock sept and the other three as well rallied to your cause and although your side was outnumbered, they fought fiercely and defeated their unexpected foes. The battle became known as the Two battles at the Second Dawn. The Tri-Khan returned, happy to greet his glorious Exalted cousin, but wary about what the fallout of this day would be. He recognised your future claim to the Burning Rock sept and gave you an unofficial title-- Khan of Dawn, but then banished you from the Empire. Politics of remaining independent of the Realm being what it is.
You made your way north, where you encountered rumour and found allies. Was discovered by a powerful Night Caste Warrior named Nameless Wolf who brought you into the Cult of Illuminated.
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