Rufio dreams.
He climbs a hill so steep it might have been a cliff face. The wind buffets him and every so often he slips, losing ground, as he scrabbles slowly up the rocky surface. At the top, watching him intently, is a pack of wolves. Rufio nears the top and the pack leader, a great, scarred male, snarls at him, teeth bared, hackles raised. Rufio leaps to the top and snarls a challenge. The two circle each other, growling. The alpha leaps, jaws snapping at Rufio's throat. Rufio dodges, and counters with a solid fist to the ribcage. The wolf yelps but deftly reverses direction, clamping painfully on the human's leg behind the knee, causing him to falter. Rufio turns his stumble into a headlong dive, locking the wolf in a bone-breaking embrace. The combatants roll around in the dirt, scratching and biting, blood and spittle mingling with the dust. Somehow they break free of each other and begin circling again, both wounded and limping. Now that they have taken the measure of each other, there is respect in their eyes. But there is a contest yet to be decided. The wolf lunges first. Same old tactic: jaws aimed for the throat. Rufio is quicker, and ready: he ducks, and grabbing the wolf's throat and foreleg as it overshoots, uses its momentum to slam it, muzzle first, into the ground. The wolf tumbles, dazed, scrabbling to right itself. Rufio kicks, punches, gouges and tears. He grabs the alpha's fractured jaws and pries them apart with all his strength, not stopping until he hears bones crack. The wolf goes limp. Rufio lifts the defeated pack leader, raises it over his head, and hurls it from the hilltop. He turns. The pack, his pack, is watching him. He raises his head and howls.