He survived. He took revenge. Now he is fourteen—and the war is only just beginning.
Kasyan, also known as Konstantin Ivanovich, a former screenwriter and tank officer trapped in the body of a thirteen-year-old teenager, survived a showdown with Fedka-Zver’s gang. But his ordeal is only beginning. His great-uncle (“ratnik”) takes him to Mensk, to the court of Prince Osteh. Instead of kitchen pots and slop, Koska faces a fate he could not even dare to dream about: he becomes the apprentice of Prince’s physician Yasep— a real helg who wields healing magic.
But Mensk is only a small fortress at the edge of a vast and merciless world. Autumn of 1380. The battle on the Kulikovo Field has just thundered; in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, family feuds are boiling over; and at the borders, Teutonic knights roam. Prince Osteh decides to visit his uncle in Polotsk and takes Koska with him. The feast turns into a bloody nightmare: a revolt, betrayal, the slaughter of the prince’s retinue, and a desperate escape through the war-torn countryside.
Kasyan will have to choose between life and death more than once. He will shoot a crossbow at crusaders, treat the wounded, learn Latin from a Baltic physician, haggle with merchants, and, single-handed, wipe out a squad of Teutonic knights. He is only fourteen, but he has already understood the most important thing: in this world, it isn’t the strongest who survives—it’s the craftiest and most ruthless.