Whoever these monsters truly were, they were well-armed and ruthless beyond all reckoning, slaughtering anyone of the Takahiro clan or compound they found, man or woman, great or small. 

[i]A washerwoman... [/i] The young woman that bastard shot was not much more than a [i]maid,[/i] and fleeing from the blue-garbed intruder at that. As Yury cleared that high garden wall, he had only a moment to take in the pale green of the cringing woman's kimono, cowering only feet from where he landed. Her small, calloused hands held up before her, a silent plea and a worthless shield - and entirely futile before a bullet.

Yury did not flinch as the hot spatter of her life's blood showered his face, speckled his clothes a foul crimson as the stench of iron and gunpowder struck him like a blow. This little woman whose name he would never know crumpled against the wall, somehow seeming even tinier and more fragile in death. A [i]servant.[/i] She had been no one of any grand importance. It was of no matter that she worked for the Takahiro clan - she had likely hurt not a single soul in all her short life. 

But innocence did not save her. And Yury saw his sister lying there, a ragged, slowly seeping hole in her lovely face, that matchless voice silenced forever... 

The Winchester rifle already slung over his shoulder when he vaulted the wall, one of Yury's hands wrapped about the [i]shashka'[/i]s sheath, the other about the hilt as he pulled the blade loose, smoothly in one fluid, lethally graceful arc up and down over the intruder's wrist, slicing neatly through flesh and bone long before the man could react to the Cossack warrior seemingly dropped from the heavens above.

The intruder probably screamed, his forearm and hand and pistol dropping to the ground like not much more than a pruned branch. Yury only ever heard his own blood raging in his skull, thundering in his ears in perfect, throbbing time with his fury. The sweep of the [i]shashka[/i]'s blade returned in a split second, slashing several inches into the deep blue cloth of the shirt, opening ribs and pink flesh to the cool air. One more flash of silver and crimson in the Spring sunlight, and Yury laid his throat open, dropping the man next to his own fallen limb in seconds.

Yury did not stop, not even for a moment. Galina was still nowhere in sight, and nowhere near safe. One booted foot slammed down on the severed wrist at his feet, cooling gloved fingers releasing their grip on the Colt pistol. Yury's amber eyes were wide and wild with a noxious mixture of rage and gut-deep dread as he sprinted toward the one and only place he had yet to search but for the house itself, [i]shashka[/i] and pilfered pistol in either hand as the lovingly tended and manicured groves of the furthest garden came into sight.