The Russian forest was bleak, dark and unforgiving. It was an hour past midnight in this timeless land where the fox, the rabbit and the bear all hid, shivering in the cold wind, waiting for the warmth of the summer sun to return. Even for what was expected of a typical Russian winter, this particular night proved to be brutally cold. An outsider passing through the dense stands of trees would never cease to wonder with amazement how the little creatures of life could survive the seemingly eternal chill. It was a chill whose only loyal partner was silence, interrupted occasionally by the crash of a falling ice-covered branch or the howl of a brisk breeze off a frozen lake. Yet, even the burrowed animals sensed that this night was somehow different from most they had experienced. Slowly but steadily, the eerie silence of the virgin forest was compromised by a rhythmic thumping, the drumming approach of multiple hoof beats. In the aura of a cloud-shrouded moon, the icy breath plumes of the Cossacks' horses gave the appearance of tiny explosions in the falling snow. No words were spoken as the ghostly military patrol crawled eastward in a column-of-twos along a frozen stream leading toward the southern shore of Lake Ladoga.