Tapasa

The tapasa are a small cadre of Bakiraka clansmen, usually numbering two to four, who attend Silat and hail him as their 'young master' throughout the clan's bid to seize the White Falcon. They stay close beside him for almost the whole story, seldom uttering a word yet springing to his defense the moment it is needed. Fiercely loyal and hard-willed, they can play at friendliness, though their vast grins spook onlookers such as Luca and Erica whenever the clan hides itself within Falconia.

Reckoned the very apex of the Bakiraka, these warriors fight at close range without blade or armor; their hands and feet are drilled into weapons that crack plate, swat arrows aside, and heave stone columns, and despite their bulk they move fast. First sent to scout for the 'land of oracle,' they clash again and again with the exile Rakshas, who threads between their blows. Serving Emperor Ganishka, they admit unease at trusting the clan's fate to a 'demon lord' as they trail the Band of the Falcon through Vritannis and the war with the Kushan. Silat declines Jarif's offer of a berth among the Falcon. In the Fantasia chapters they beat back Rakshas' attempts on Rickert's life, soak the assassin with Rickert's modified flame pump, and afterward escape on Daiba's garudas.

As individuals the tapasa are intentionally interchangeable: every one of them shares the same shaven head, knotted knuckles, brow markings, and heavy musculature, and Silat never once calls any of them by name. How many there are shifts between two and four as the tale goes on. In Malayalam and Sanskrit alike their name denotes a sage or a hermit, and their look recalls the Niō, the guardian defenders of the Buddha, an echo of the 'diamond-handed' Vajrapani whose title fits their bone-crushing style.