The saga of one man's epic struggle to survive during the tumultuous early years of the 13th century as two powerful and aristocratic families-one Russian, one Mongol-are inexorably drawn into bloody conflict, fated to play opposing sides in the creation of the largest empire of the medieval age. Cruelly betrayed while a mere boy by his brother's vaulting ambition, he eventually overcomes bitter slavery far from his native land, achieving the status of a legendary warrior without peer among his adoptive people. Ultimately forced by tragic circumstances to choose between these two diverse cultures, he must finally decide where his true loyalties lay.