Tanik Koizev wanders through the burned-out gymnasium of the school where hundreds of hostages died during a terrifying siege in September.
Last week he finally buried his niece, after a delay in identifying her disfigured body. And when a 40-day mourning period ends today, he and others from Beslan have vowed to bury members of the Ingush ethnic group to avenge more than 330 people -- more than half of them children -- who died in the gunfire and explosions.
The Sept. 3 attack was carried out by a band of militants with links to Chechen rebels, some of whom came from the province of Ingushetia, which borders this province of North Ossetia.
Russians traditionally observe 40 days of mourning after deaths, and Ossetians say the end of the mourning period could herald an outbreak of interethnic violence among Ossetians and ethnic Ingush who live here.
"There will be violence. It won't be noisy. It will be quiet -- one person at a time," said Koizev as he wandered through the husk of the school, stepping over flowers and stuffed animals left in memory of the victims.
Although Koizev's 12-year-old daughter was among the hostages, she survived. But that hasn't softened his anger.
"They say, `Forgive, forgive.' How do you forgive something like this? How do you explain this? Forgive? No way," Koizev said.
"It's not a secret that we are waiting" for the end of the mourning period, said Sergei Tandaleyev, 67, of Sunja.
"We will demand that [the Ingush] leave. All of them," he said. If they don't, "there will be war."
Venom and fear run deep between the Ingush and the Ossetians, two of the myriad of ethnic groups that mix uneasily here. The Russian Caucasus region also includes Chechnya, where separatist rebels have been fighting Russian forces for more than five years.
Chechen warlord Shamil Ba-sayev reportedly claimed responsibility for the school seizure and said at least nine of the 32 assailants were ethnic Ingush.
The Ingush are predominantly Muslim and are closely related to the Chechens. Ossetians are overwhelmingly Christian and historically have had close ties with Russia.
The Ingush and Chechens share another connection: members of both communities were exiled en masse to Central Asia under Soviet dictator Josef Stalin.
In 1992, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, thousands of Ingush who had returned from exile were evicted from their homes in towns around the North Ossetian capital, their belongings looted and their houses burnt. Hundreds died in 10 days of fighting.
Thousands of Ingush remain in squalid, makeshift towns and refugee camps on the border between North Ossetia and Ingushetia. Those who remain in North Ossetia are subject to harassment, discrimination and -- since Beslan -- death threats. Many Ingush still claim title to land and homes now occupied by Ossetians.
Last month, Ruslan Aushev, a former president of Ingushetia, warned that revenge attacks could destabilize the entire Caucasus region. He appealed to authorities to try to soothe the anger of relatives of the Beslan victims.
But many Ossetians say they are cleaning their guns, many of which were acquired during the last bout of violence in 1992.
Russian authorities have vowed to prevent revenge attacks, dis-patching hundreds of extra police and troops to the region. President Vladimir Putin has said anyone who commits revenge attacks would be siding with the Beslan terrorists.
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