Jarfejs Heximmatov

Jarfejs Heximmatov
Full name	Jarfejs Heximmatov
AKA	Marshal of Spears
Physical information
Species	Human
Gender	Male
Biographical information
Father	Sarvar Heximmatæ
Mother	Unknown Tellian slave
Date of birth	12.I.1607 AN
Place of birth	Rozenhafn, Former Ashkenatza
Residence(s)	Hall of Spears, Bagegeniśort (Stonetree)
Nationality	Stateless (Laqi)
Allegiance(s)	Republic of Inner Benacia
Occupation	Marshal of the Ćyg°e X°ymenym pai Leg°ege

Born into the first generation of Lachs who emigrated into the Benacian interior following the collapse of Ashkenatza in 1605, Jarfejs earned his spurs by killing his first Tellian at the age of thirteen. He apprenticed as a mercenary, serving in the Free Republic of Wayne and the Kingdom of Amokolia. Reviling those of his brethren who made pacts with the necrotic lords of Lichbrook and Minarboria, Jarfejs pledged his Shash-ko to the Israilovsky Kossars, becoming drawn into the resistance to Elwynnese expansion westwards into the ungoverned spaces. He survived the slaughter on Posada Ridge in 1639, which served as his introduction to the horrors of mechanised warfare. Taken prisoner during the assizes which followed the war, Jarfejs was given the choice between serving in the Stratioti or an accidental death. He chose the former option and rose to the rank of Corporal in Elwynnese service before cutting his lieutenant's throat and escaping westwards during the Year of the Four Kaisers in 1644.

There was some suggestion that he served for a time as a "beast-wrangler" for the Lord &zeter's Hares in Minarborian service in the aftermath of the Harvestfall Revolution when standards were beginning to slip. As the Liches began to subside from torpor into catatonia, their reliance on the resident underclass of breathers grew more and more. Certainly Jarfejs, lacking the ideological commitment of the distraught Black Laq, was ideally positioned to participate in the glorious free for all of looting which occasioned the Empire's final demise in 1648.

Hexummatov's ascent from small-time rapist and murder to fully fledged warlord was greatly abetted by the charming habit of Kalgachia and Shireroth of stepping in periodically to exterminate his foremost rivals. To the KDF went the credit for snuffing out the last vestiges of the Black Rangers, whilst the various Shirerithian razzias into what they termed the Inner Benacian Quarantine Zone were almost too numerous to mention. By the time of the last great offensive Jarfejs had risen to sufficient eminence amongst the Labeśx°e clan of the Red Laqs that the Free Communes of Highbloom, Nackholm and Stonetree, hired a mercenary company under his leadership to ride to the defence of Highbloom. For Jarfejs, tasked with defending the township nestled inside a ruined city against the XXVIII Legion, it proved to be a chilling reminder of ruthlessness, firepower, and mobility of the Imperial Forces for whom inhibitions concerning the use of deadly force were absent in a manner that even the most sanguinary Laq could scarcely comprehend, let alone emulate.

Whilst Jarfejs had endured a drubbing in Highbloom at the hands of the ancient Gotzer mercenary Hugh O'Neill, the remaining clans - who had sworn a pact of alliance in desperation before the Dolmen in Stonetree - had achieved an incredible victory, albeit against rather reluctant adversaries conscripted from the Lywall Protectorate, which had saved the last of the three communes from occupation and paved the way for the creation of the Republic of Inner Benacia. In spite of this, ruminating upon his defeat and even having had to resort to the extremity of killing a challenger during a coordination duel to maintain his position, Jarfejs became convinced that the only way the new state would survive was to have a cadre of professionally trained troops in direct service to the government. For this reason he surprised many by supporting Yehudi and Tellian proposals to create a defence league or association for home defence at the Dolmen.

Although plagued by refractory and wilfully ignorant subordinates, poisonous clan and ethnic rivalries, and dire material shortages even after the looted military materiel taken from the defeated Lywallers had been shared out, Jarfejs, who by this point had taken to styling himself as Marshal of the diminutive army, was obliged to lead the scratch forces he had assembled into battle after it became known that the Kasterburg Republic had established garrisons in territory to which the Inner Benacians had laid claim.