TEAM: We're the White Wolf team aren't we?

WEAPON: choke-chain (three feet long), barely trained dog (disposable, like a gun, see? Find a wild dog, train it just enough not to attack him, set it loose as needed, repeat process), meat cleaver, pickax, fists.

INFO: Ukrainian revolutionary (1402), dog trainer, strangling assassin, butcher, miner, brawler.

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THE BATTLE:

Sigul warily approached the edge of the cliff. It was the dead of night, but a deep orange glow suffused the sky, lighting up the cliff's horizon like the eyelid of God. He reached the edge and looked down at what he saw, gripping his sword a little tighter. He jumped down the slope and slid to a halt at the base. He walked forward…into the wreckage. The little village was on fire. It had spread quickly, there were multiple signs of combat. He drew closer to one of the buildings, gently smoldering now. He sniffed it. He drew back quickly, drawing his sword. This village had started burning three days ago, and someone had kept it going. But who? And why? His question was answered when he felt a chain wrap around his neck from behind.
He dropped his sword and clutched at the thick, heavy, and rusty chain. Since this didn't seem to be working, he lifted his leg, an easy task since the chain was nearly lifting him onto his toes, aimed in his head, and kicked.
The chain's death-grip was released from around his throat and he rolled and grabbed up his katana. He sheathed it, and drew out the much larger sword on his back, holding it with two hands.
He stepped into a defensive stance and took a good look at his enemy on the ground, collapsed around his private universe of pain.
Eventually the would-be killer regained his feet. Sigul could see he was still holding the chain.
The hermit faced Sigul and gave him a piercing stare. The man's eyes were positively fierce, they almost Glowed. They made him look as if he had a little wolf in his ancestry. Or sapphire.
The blue eyed madman spoke in a language Sigul didn't understand.
"Robyv vony posylaty vy?"
It appeared to be a question. Sigul just stood his ground.
The stranger repeated the question, this time in a louder voice.
When Sigul could give no satisfactory answer, the madman bellowed a war cry, pulled a meat cleaver out of his rags, and set on him like a wild animal.
"Brekhun! Vbyvtsia! Bis!"
Sigul had drawn his two-handed sword in the hope that it would serve as a weapon of peace, that the man would merely be intimidated enough not to attack. Now, he was being forced to parry strikes from something small and light with something large and heavy.
This continued for ten minutes until the man feinted left and then caught Sigul upside his head with the flat of the cleaver's blade.
Sigul staggered back two steps, and then fell unconscious.

………

His eyes flickered open and saw the night sky. In the corner of his vision, he could see the orange glow.
Oh no! The invalid had set him on fire!
Out of pure reflex, Sigul sat bolt upright. What he saw puzzled him. The fire of the village had been allowed to die. A much smaller one, suitable for cooking, had been made nearby.
Sigul was alone. He reached up and felt his head. There was a bandage there.
A noise made him turn.
The man from earlier walked back into the circle of firelight carrying what scraps of wood there were that weren't already ashes.
He set them down and sat down next to Sigul.
Instinctively, Sigul reached for one of his weapons. He was mildly surprised to find them missing. The man obviously wasn't stupid.
The man turned that diamond-hard gaze on him again, and spoke, this time in a language he could understand.
"Good, you're awake. I searched you after you were out, to make sure you were one of them, so I could kill you."
The man's voice now, now that he wasn't fighting, was almost devoid of life, so tired, so cold.
Sigul smiled.
"I guess, since I'm alive I wasn't, I take it?"
The man nodded. Getting a closer look at him now, Sigul placed him at around thirty years old.
"Your weapons are over there, in the horse trough."
Sigul waved his hand.
"I'll get them later."
He understood that some things were more important.
"Why are you here? What happened?"
The man turned his gaze back to the fire, but it was somewhere far away.
"The Timurid soldiers. They came to conquer us. They succeeded."
The man turned and looked back at Sigul. There were tears in his eyes. They reflected the pale moonlight.
"But they didn't burn. They left everything out…every…every one out. They left them out as a warning."
His face hardened even as the tears streamed down his cheeks.
"Everywhere."
Sigul could do nothing but nod silently.
The man closed his eyes against the tears and clutched his hands to his head.
"You don't understand! They…they…when they were killing the villagers, one was not all the way dead, and, and, and I could hear him hammering on my door with his fists, and I stood in my house and listened to him die and I wished him dead so that the noise would stop, but, but, but when it did , it went on in my head, and I could, I could, I could have opened the door but I was afraid of the dark soldiers who have no souls, and because of that the darkness of Hell will take mine…"
Sigul decided to turn the conversation away from the horrors of Imperialism. Or perhaps, towards them.
Sigul gripped the man's heaving shoulder.
"Soldiers are soldiers. They all die if you stab them enough. Join me, together we are stronger than any army."
The man looked at Sigul for a long time and then stood up.
"At least…At least I can take solace in that I have laid their bodies to rest."
Sigul stood up as well.
"You're a member of the Order of the White Wolves, now."
The man turned to Sigul and stuck out his hand.
"My name is Grigori Samsa. But I go by Serkitt."
Sigul shook Serkitt's hand.
"I am called Sigul."
The sun rose.


THE END