Muscovy, second half of the 16th century. Veliky Novgorod is tormented by the guardsmen of Ivan the Terrible. A wealthy merchant's family flees certain doom, pursued by the king's servants. So they meet on the winter path the son of a Russian merchant and an oprichnik Tatar, and involuntarily become friends. For young people, everything seems nothing - both a mortal risk and wandering in a foreign land. Only muscles become stronger and characters stronger. And adventures themselves find heroes.