The mist of morning moved slowly over the Perun Marsh, and the silence was only broken by the hooting of an owl. Radomir, the nearly seventeen-year-old son of a blacksmith, sat on the cold threshold of the smithy, unable to sleep after a night full of disturbing dreams. His younger sister, Mila, with a storm of red hair and impatience written on her face, fell out from behind the hut. She was already sixteen, but there was still a rebellion burning within her against ordinary village life. - 'Have you thought about what we saw yesterday? - She whispered, looking around nervously. - Those footprints on the edge of the marsh... It wasn't a deer. Nor any animal we know. Radomir nodded his head. Before sleep, he had seen in his imagination a huge shadow passing between the willows, and the fish in his father's nets had disappeared overnight, as if snatched up by an unknown force. The whole village whispered of a curse, of Perun's wrath to return in storms. - Grandfather once told of the guardians of this swamp, the kind that cannot be seen in the light of day. He said there was something hiding among the rushes, guarding the balance. - Mila put her hand on her brother's shoulder. - Maybe we should check it out? Before dawn. Before the harvest begins. Radomir hesitated, but curiosity won out. They took the nets and an old torch they had stealthily snatched from his grandfather's hut. The marshes waited to the east, just beyond the border of oaks and alders, where the ground bowed to their feet and ravens circled low, as if guarding the entrance to another world. They walked silently through the dew, slipping on slippery stones, warned by ominous cawing. When they reached the spot where they had seen the strange footprints the previous day, they stopped and leaned over the water. New footprints were visible on the muddy bank - larger than a human foot, wide and deep. Suddenly something rustled in the reeds. Mila stepped back terrified, and Radomir raised his torch and aimed the light into the thicket. A hunchbacked figure emerged from the mist, wrapped in leather shreds and moss, with eyes flashing like two ambers. The figure raised a hand, telling them to be silent. At the same moment, the air around them trembled, and shadows with disturbingly human silhouettes began to emerge from the nearby water....