Ninja
A tale is told of a Shadowkin swordsman who happened upon a foundling boy-child in the reeds of a river near his village. Swaddled in the torn colours of a Banner Lord House, by the dark law of the warrior’s demonspawn overlords the child’s life was forfeit.
Silent, but without fear, the boy met the eyes of the Shadowkin swordsman, never breaking his gaze… even as the warrior’s blade rose for the killing stroke.
But the blade never fell.
We will never know the reason the warrior stayed his hand. Respect for valour in one so young? A spark of rebellion against his dark masters? The warrior is long-since passed, and the child speaks no word still.
What is known is that the warrior took the child as his ward. The boy was hidden from the Demonspawn during the annual tithings, a secret held by the village by unspoken agreement. He was taught their ways - but having no family name, no clan, and no kin, he was known only as “boy”… but this boy was quick to learn.
His days were spent with the warrior, mastering the dance of blade and bow. When the warrior could teach him no more, he was sent to greater masters - wielders of black sorcery and shadow.
When the time came, he was blooded in the great civil war of the Shadowkin. How they turned their dark arts upon their masters is another tale, let it be enough to know that he was there, fighting for their liberation. His arrows flew from the shadows, piercing demonspawn throats. His blade cleansed the filth from their mountain strongholds, as Siroth’s slaves fled in terror from a “ghost of steel and shadow”. When the Shadowkin arose to their first dawn as a free people once more, only then did they grant him a name…
Ninja.
