***O***

Otiliya couldn't believe her eyes. The fritz was blasting like a madman at the cossacks. She thought that he was only good for tinkering, drinking and running, but turns out there was a spark of warrior in him all along.

Though the scales turned in russisches favor as the two who were still standing, returned rapid fire upon the machinist's position. The fool won't last long like this. It was time for her to spring into action.

From behind a workbench she creept at the backs of the enemy with the slaughter hammer in hand. The cossack Indrik had shot, was in the motion of getting on his feet. Like a mutt on its back, showing its belly.

Death came to the russisch at an instant. Without even a second thought, the laundress brought the head of her hammer down on the poor bastard's skull. The weapon's weight flattened the papakha immediately. Then with a sickening crunch it cracked the bone.

Just to be sure, she squeezed the trigger on the handle, igniting the powder. The miniature explosion which pushed the spike forward caused ringing in Otiliya's ears, muffling the wet sound of the spike going in and out.

The half up man flopped to the floor with a thud. Unmoving, lifeless; with blood gushing from the opening. The acrid smell of the smoke was soon overtaken with the pungent stench of spoiled meat which made her nose wince.

Otiliya couldn't not fathom how one could smell so horrible. Devil takes, that's the big reason why she spotted the fools at the courtyard. Did they not wash their clothes? Or is it something they ate? The laundress did hear that the northmen liked to eat rotten herring. Maybe Muscovites did too?

After the laundress's short musings, like with the wrench, she dropped the hammer aside, for a greater prize awaited her. From the stiff metal scabbard on the cossack's belt she drew the saber. It even made the "shwing" sound.

Otiliya's amber eyes reflected in the silvery steel blade. Her tail began to wag side to side as excitement boiled up inside. After all these years, she finally held a saber of her own. Not in the way she had expected, but still. The dream of her childhood drew ever closer...

The laundress shook herself from her exhilarated stupor. This was not the time. Focusing her attention on one of the, still oblivious to her presence, gunmen on the left. She quickly closed the distance with a weapon raised high, hacking at the sleeve covered pistol arm with a downwards strike. The chop was met with a clang resounding resistance as the blade bounced off, sending a painful jolt through her right arm.

The action resulted in cossack losing grip on the blaster, yet there was no other reaction. No scream of pain or even an annoyed grunt. The russisch simply drew his saber and focused his attention on her, the metal mask not betraying even a glimmer of emotion. A glance at her sword revealed that the blade was slightly warped. What's the deal with this bloke?

The sparks flew as steel met steel. What followed was a dance of constant blocking and parrying- that's all she could do against the relentless onslaught of the cossack she had disturbed. Despite the martial discipline and skill her assailant displayed, he was noticeably sluggish. So much, in fact, that a laundress like Otiliya could keep up, boosted by her wolfish reflexes.

This only strengthened her belief that her brother was a yarn spinner. How he had told Otiliya how by hair's length he had survived a duel with one of the Black Cossacks? Hogwash! The only thing Ako had not lied about was his swordsmanship, for it is keeping her alive at the moment. How many times had she pleaded with elder brolis to teach her how to fence.

Lips twisting into a smirk, the wolfborn decided to put her sibling's tale to a final test. She reenacted it, making a high-downwards faint maneuver, as Ako once showed her. The slowpoke fell for it, raising his weapon up in a high guard. She stopped and redirected the blade in a low-upwards plunge, driving the blade deep in the enemy's gut.

But to her bewilderment and terror, the man just kept going on. He didn't even seem to flinch at the fatal wound. The only thing that changed about the cossack was the reek of rot increasing in magnitude.

She relinquished her blade and hastily seized his wrists, preventing a counter attack. However, under the sleeves of the black coat she didn't feel the softness of flesh or even the contours of wrist bones. What she grasped was angular and had metallic solideness. The russisch didn't relent, pushing onward as both of them tumbled to the ground.