A standalone novella of Soviet folk horror for readers of Adam Nevill's The Ritual, Michelle Paver's Dark Matter and Dan Simmons's The Terror. 153 pages.

December 1961. The Soviet Urals.

Four men head into the mountains to hunt hare and stretch the rations the Union provides: a hunter raised in the snow, a factory worker whose grievances against the Union are growing dangerous to voice, a one-eyed veteran of Stalingrad, and a young Komsomol member whose faith has never been tested.

In the silence under the pines, they become caught in a tightening web of mistrust — of one another, of the State that has shaped each of their lives, and of something older still, gathering at the edges of the trees.

Slow-burn folk horror with a cosmic edge, rendered with real historical depth. Content notes: violence, war, animal death, suicide.