From the moment Didé could walk, King Zauzau II began molding him for the battles he would inevitably face as ruler. The king believed that luxury and comfort bred weakness, so the young prince's life was one of constant adversity and challenge.
At age 5, Didé was sent to live and train with the kingdom's elite desert scouts in the blistering Emoriki Wastes for a year. He learned to survive off the sparse vegetation, endure the scorching days and freezing nights, navigate without instruments, and slip undetected through hostile terrain. The scouts showed no mercy - if the boy failed any task, he went weaponless and hungerless until he succeeded.
When he returned to the palace, the training intensified. Zauzau had the most legendary warriors and generals in the realm put Didé through rigors few grown men could withstand. He ran miles in full armor before being allowed to eat. He sparred against seasoned soldiers using dull blades that still split skin. He strategized war games, making tactics that were torn apart and ridiculed until he found perfect solutions.
In the royals' private chambers, Zauzau tutored his son on military histories, philosophies, principles of leadership, and the art of combat. No detail was too small - Didé had to recite from memory the armaments, disciplines, and standards used by the realm's running of the military dating back centuries.
Zauzau wanted his son to know the true horrors of war as well. At age 10, before he was shipped to Ajari to learn the Ajarian culture, Didé was forced to watch executions of prisoners, carried out by methods like hanging, beheading, and impalement. He had to observe the decomposing remains on battlefields for weeks, untouched by him, so he grew acclimated to the ubiquitous stench of death.
When Didé turned 15, Zauzau proclaimed he was ready to taste actual battle. The prince was sent to fight on the front lines in the bloody campaign against the Haipaka barbarians. Didé killed his first man before the end of that year - running a spear through an enemy's gut after the battle was thought to be over. Zauzau had the corpse brought back to the palace, where he made his son dine with the deceased man for a month to overcome any lingering conscience.
When Didé turned 17, King Zauzau summoned him with a mission befitting a prince's final test before officially joining the king's elite guard. Deep in the impregnable fortresses of Isaka, a long-time enemy kingdom, was stored an ancient ceremonial mask - carved from solid gold and adorned with thousands of tiny gemstones. The mask held immense historical and cultural significance to Idollo, as it was once worn by the first kings during the sacred Awakening rites on the harmattan solstice.
"That priceless artifact rightfully belongs to our people," Zauzau declared. "And you will be the one to seize it from those vile Isakan dogs and restore it to its honored place."
Didé was to take only a handful of the most elite warriors - six of the most deadly and stealthy men in the King's personal guard. He would need to rely on their protection, for Zauzau instructed that lethal force was to be used if necessary, but outright warfare with Isaka must be avoided at all costs.
Among the six men was the beautiful warrior, Nakaba. Her lithe, athletic build and cold, chiseled features masked her incredible skill with the twin baraka blades. Nakaba was renowned as the most sublime dancer in all the eight kingdoms, but Didé would soon learn her magnificent performances with the razor-sharp swords made her a peerless assassin as well - earning her the fearsome moniker "The Blade Dancer."
The small team embarked on the covert operation, trekking for weeks through treacherous mountain passes until they arrived at the outskirts of the Isakan capital, Zjardhon. Under cover of night, they breached the city's underground tunnels and vaults, dodging patrols of heavily-armed sentries.
At last they found themselves in the inner royal treasure chambers. The golden mask's glass case was protected by a complex series of trips and traps that took the elite warriors nearly an entire night to bypass safely.
Just as Didé reached to seize their gilded prize, a shadow dropped from a conduit above - an Isakan assassin, garbed in black and wielding dual serpentine khanja blades. She struck with blinding speed, her blades clashing against Nakaba's as the Blade Dancer answered the attack in a flurry of steel.
The ensuing battle was chaos. More Isakan guards flooded into the chambers as alarms blazed all around them. The prince's warriors fought with the desperation of cornered wolves, blades and fists cutting down men by the score.
One by one, Didé's small team fell to the endless waves of skilled Isakan opponents. A final khanja blade opened the belly of the last man besides Didé and Nakaba. The two fought back-to-back, Didé cradling the golden mask in one arm while deflecting blades with his scimitar.
As their strength waned, Nakaba shouted a warning and shoved Didé aside, her baraka blades taking the blows meant to fell the prince. Three Isakan soldiers fell with gurgling cries as the Blade Dancer countered with a whirling storm of severed tendons and arteries.
With the remaining guards closing in, Didé acted without thinking - scooping Nakaba into his arms and making a harrowing leap through the stained-crystal-glass window behind them just as a hail of arrows filled the space they had occupied.
They barely survived the twelve-story plummet, using the mask itself to blunt the hardest impacts. Before the thunderous shockwave had even settled, Didé was on his feet -- hauling the semi-conscious Nakaba away from the Isakan stronghold as quickly as his legs could carry them both.
For seven endless days and nights, they raced across hostile terrain, staying off roads and constantly doubling back with hairpin turns to throw off pursuit. Nakaba's grievous wounds very nearly claimed her life a few times, but Didé refused to let his friend die. Finally, they crossed over the borders of Idollo, collapsing in a remote southern village.
Word spread quickly of Prince Didé's heroic feat in reclaiming the priceless Awakening mask. The young warrior had succeeded despite all odds where even Zauzau's most elite failed, and in doing so he gained the immortal loyalty of Nakaba who would pledge her life to protecting Didé from that day forward.
Didé chuckled wistfully as they rode away from the Black Orchid tavern. "You know Nakaba, I was just thinking back to that hellish mission in Isaka and how we first met."
Nakaba smirked. "You mean when I saved your royal backside from being kebabbed by those Isakan assassins?"
"Is that what happened?" Didé retorted with a grin. "I seem to recall a dashing prince having to scoop up a certain lithe dancer before she became a permanently flat one on the chamber floor."
Nakaba playfully punched his arm. "Keep telling yourself that, princeling. We both know if not for my blades, you'd have bled out from those khanja wounds long before reaching the village."
"Yes, yes, mighty Blade Dancer," Didé conceded with an exaggerated tone. "To whom I'll be forever indebted for patching me up after my father's 'prime warrior training' in my youth."
Nakaba laughed loudly at that. "By the gods, Your Highness! The things His Majesty put you through..." She shook her head in amazement. "Starving you for days, forcing you to dine with corpses, flaying you with practice blades? How you turned out to be such a decent human being is a miracle!"
"Oh, don't sell the codger short," Didé deadpanned. "He also had me watching countless executions from a tender age to build character. Can't forget those lovely childhood memories!"
"His Majesty's methods were...extreme," Nakaba stated carefully. "But they clearly instilled an incredible fortitude within you. Fewer men could have survived the crucibles he engineered."
Didé sighed heavily. "That is true, I suppose. His intention was to produce a ruler of absolute strength and resolve."
"And those qualities shone brightly when we retrieved the sacred Awakening mask," Nakaba said. "I was honored to fight by your side."
Didé placed a grateful hand on her shoulder. "If not for your skills with the baraka blades, Nakaba, we surely would not have escaped from that pit of vipers alive."
Nakaba wanted to say something but was distracted by a commotion. Around a bend up ahead, villagers began pouring out of the tree line - men, women and children alike fleeing in a panicked stampede. Cries of terror echoed across the fields as the throngs of people desperately ran toward the perceived safety of the town.
As Didé and Nakaba rode through the fleeing crowds, Didé reached out and stopped a hysterical woman.
"Woman, what is happening here?"
The woman's wild eyes met Didé's intense gaze. "M-my good sir...They have returned to plague our village once more!"
Nakaba's eyes narrowed. "Who has returned? Speak plainly."
Tears streamed down the woman's cheeks as she gestured back towards the trees. "T-The Turners!"
"Who?" Didé narrowed his eyes in confusion.
The shaken woman impatiently ran off with crowd.
"Those soul-eaters have come again to drive us from our homes!" said another man who ran with his children.
Didé and Nakaba exchanged a loaded glance, the weight of the villager's words hanging heavy between them.
As the two elite warriors studied their surroundings with heightened senses, details began to blur and bend at the fringes in disturbing ways. Trees seemed to subtly contort in unnatural angles, shadows danced with insidious sentience, and the very air took on a shimmering menace. Didé felt his pulse thundering with the anticipation of confronting an evil that the nine kingdoms of Out-earth may not know.