In the Black Mountains of Pakistan, the discovery of an unconscious, unknown man is the first stone in an avalanche of chaos. The head of the village is beset with problems – including the injured stranger – and failing to find his way out. His daughter receives a love letter and incurs her father’s wrath. A lame boy foretells disaster, but nobody is listening. Trapped in terrible danger, a wolf-dog is battling ice and death to save a soldier’s life. Beaten by her addict husband for bearing him only daughters, a woman is pregnant again – but can this child save her? In a land woven with myth, chained with tradition and afflicted by war and the march of progress, the spirits of the mountains keep a baleful eye on the struggles of the villagers who scrape a living from the bodies of their wildlife.