1237 year from the Nativity of Christ. The disastrous winter of Batu's invasion. Ryazan governor Evpatiy, who went for help, returns to the ruins of his hometown. To the ruins of your own life... If your home has turned into ashes, if the sovereign you served is dead, and everyone who was dear to you, if the God himself, in whom you believed, has turned away from you and your land - where to look for help? And isn’t it time to remember that you don’t have a Christian nickname at all, but an ancient pagan one? The chronicles tell incredible things about Evpatiy Kolovrat’s detachment: it turns out that the Tatars believed that the dead had risen up against them—could ordinary partisanship really have so frightened thugs who had traveled halfway around the world? And why, in order to defeat the Russian “braves,” did the conquerors have to throw thousands of their best warriors against Kolovrat’s small squad—a hundred against one? Who did the last governor of the dead city turn into if the enemies were able to kill him only with the help of battering machines? Who responded to his call and came to his aid? And what really happened on Russian soil in the mortal winter of 1237?..