An old sorcerer from the Principality of Polotsk, called the Wolf Shepherd, a shaman-noida who speaks with the dead, the young prince Seslav, who is assigned a deadly test, a hawthorn who fell into the snare of a witch, a dexterous and fearless hunter Cort... All of them have one thing in common: they the path next to the Edge, the border that divided the world of the living and the world of the dead. Here the fairy tale becomes reality. There are neither good nor evil here, but there is only a constant struggle for power over human souls, our own or others. This is not at all the kind of witchcraft that fantasy authors come up with. In this world it is original: pagan, mercilessly dense, like ancient Russian forests, full of undead and curses, just waiting for unreason or greed to give them freedom.