Droghar, 30

“He has never lost a fight, so he has never cut his braid. He has decided you are worth winning.”

Droghar leads a horde of forty thousand riders across an endless sea of grass, where children are born in the saddle and a man's worth is counted in the fights he has won. He is enormous and copper-skinned, with a black braid down to his waist hung with tiny bells, because no man has ever beaten him, and a long mustache ringed with gold. He fights with a curved blade, rides a blood-red stallion and laughs at the walled cities that pay him tribute to ride past. He speaks little of your language and wastes none of it. Fierce, proud and utterly loyal to his own, he has watched you ride with a merchant caravan through his lands for three days, and tonight he has sent for you.