11

It was damp and semi-dark in the cramped dugout. A splinter fumed, illuminating the wretched decoration: several shops and a hearth, near which children played on a tattered skin. Three kids were busy with bast dolls, talking softly in different voices.

A young woman, sitting by a dimly lit light, was spinning yarn. She had a pale, haggard face and long hair tied into two braids.

The door slammed. From the draft, the amulets suspended from the mother rattled, knocking against each other. Old wooden ones have long lost their protective power and left them only as a memory ... a memory of protection, of a calm, well-fed life. The spinner tossed her head. Fear froze in his dark eyes.

A man descended into the dugout. He was short, but broad-shouldered, and dressed in the same way - poorly, almost beggarly.

"Get ready," said the newcomer.

The inhabitant of the miserable dwelling got up from the bench, dropping the spindle and looking at the man with plaintive doom:

- Again?

- Necess