Bakiraka

Originating as a caste of war slaves bound to the toppled Kushan royal family, the Bakiraka were forced off their lands generations ago. Once they reached Midland they set aside their pride and took up work as assassins, leaning entirely on their remarkable fighting ability. They align themselves with the powerful, having served the Midland Royal Family, various Holy See realms, and eventually Emperor Ganishka, whom they aid in the hunt for Griffith in exchange for the promise of the clan's restoration.

Across Midland the clan is spoken of as a guild of murderers and an order of assassins, its members rumored to be superhuman monsters. All of them train in a broad range of killing techniques, favor stealth, and reportedly see in the dark. The tapasa, their elite muscle, are powerful enough to crush iron armor bare-handed and heave stone pillars, yet remain startlingly quick for their size. As a warrior people they hold that anyone who fears death will never rise to greatness, though they still value survival and view Rakshas, a former clansman turned demon, as a disgraced taboo.

The Bakiraka dwell in a concealed village set among lands so forbidding that not even spirits are said to reach it. During the Hundred-Year War they eliminated a hundred rulers and retainers from assorted nations. When the Band of the Falcon flees with Princess Charlotte, the King of Midland summons a squad of five, an emaciated man with claw blades, a poison-dart imp, a hunched trident-wielder, a giant who throws logs like spears, and a veiled woman who ignites flammable dust, to block the rescuers inside the tower tunnels. Judeau exploits the sparks struck by their weapons to pick them off in the dark with Pippin's help, and the surviving woman is executed by the king after Griffith escapes.

Years later Silat is revealed as a Bakiraka scouting for the "land of oracle," and the clan repeatedly attempts to seize Griffith on Ganishka's behalf, only to be thwarted by figures like Zodd and the exile Rakshas. As the Kushan cause curdles, the spy Jarif invites the clan to abandon the mad emperor and serve the Falcon, but Silat, wary of yielding to an inescrutable current, chooses instead to watch events unfold from the sidelines. In Falconia the clan tries to keep Rickert alive for the information he holds while hunting Rakshas, eventually driving the assassin into his true form with a modified flamethrower.

Silat, son of the clan's leader, is its most prominent face, backed by the hulking tapasa who serve as his guard and shock troops. Rakshas, an exile who pledged himself to Griffith, was once a Bakiraka and now stalks the clan as an amorphous, mask-wearing apostle. The clan's other named figures are the five specialists sent against the Griffith rescue party: the long-limbed clawman, the stout "frog" with his trident, the tiny dart-blowing "imp," the massive javelin thrower, and the dust-wielding woman, most of whom fall during that ambush.