Kharkov the Red, First Hunter of the Czar, wrestler of bears and, on one recorded occasion, launcher of Montaigne nobility into the northern sea. His bear Mishka could smell what people were hiding, which is how the company learned one of the five Inquisitor Cardenales was not a man.
Years before the company existed, Kharkov walked out of a blizzard behind his bear and saved a freezing prophet's life: a rescue that interrupted, as it turns out, a devil's sales pitch in progress. Grigori owes him everything. So, arguably, does the wager.
How many of these rabble can you ride down per pass? — "All of them."
At the cliff monastery he cleared a rooftop from three hundred yards at dusk, Henryk feeding him reloads. In the spring he had had enough ("Too many lies. Too many smells I don't trust") and went home to Ussura, the bear walking beside his horse. The company has not been able to run the same plans since.