Russia, 1920. Kolya has deserted his Red Army unit and returns home to bury his brother and reunite with his wife and sons. But he finds the village silent and empty. The men have been massacred in the forest. The women and children have disappeared.

In this remote, rural community the folk tales mothers tell their children by candlelight take on powerful significance and the terrifying legend of The Deathless One begins to feel very real. Kolya sets out on a journey through dense, haunting forests and across vast plains as bitter winter sets in, in the desperate hope he will find his family. But there are very dark things in his past - and there's someone, or something, on his trail...

Read by Nigel Carrington

(p) 2014 Orion Publishing Group