Ural Blizzard

In the year 1502 of the Grand Calendar, Mengli Khan of Crimea invaded Sarai, bringing the Great Horde to an end. The Golden Horde, once united, split completely into four fragments called khanates: Kazan, Astrakhan, Crimea, and Nogai. Forty-seven years have passed, yet the four khanates are still locked in ceaseless war. To the north, the Grand Duchy of Moscow has founded the Tsardom of Russia. To the west, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth has drawn its sword. To the south, the Ottoman Empire has turned its attention to the lucrative trade along the northern shore of the Black Sea.

The Khanate of Kazan is the homeland of Sezran, a military commander. Its beys scheme against one another, the khan's authority is a mere formality, the 500,000 who favor Russia and the elite Turks who favor the Ottomans have fallen out, and the countryside is divided from the cities. The Adil River plains are cut off from the Ural Mountains, while commoners are squeezed by every kind of jasaq landlord, comprador merchant, and government procurement agent. Russian armies are massing at the borders, the beys are divided, the Ottoman Empire refuses to come to the rescue, and Poland-Lithuania has joined the fray. Kazan, Astrakhan, Nogai, and Siberia, four brother nations that share a language and a people, are locked in endless conflict. Sezran and the generations who came before him, along with his companions, will exhaust every weapon, wield every power, and use every stratagem in this sea of blood, where bitter cold alternates with scorching heat, to stop the people who raised them from being driven off the land they have called home for generations.