Centuries ago, on a ravaged planet, peoples formed a Binding Truce to end wars once and for all. They entrusted their interests to highly professional fighters—lion-maned knights—who fought in hand-to-hand duels. One of these famed knights was Murray Pearson. Until the moment he lost a battle on which the future fate of his homeland depended. Now he is nothing more than a scout of the Citadel, a hunter for potential champions. In the dark slums of the Underground, a young orphan named Sego fights in an arena. Murray believes the teenager is worthy of being admitted to the Lyceum—a prestigious institution where the best masters of martial arts train grivars for the coming feats. But the problem is that Sego is a slave, and the price of his freedom is victory in savage bouts from which it’s not easy to get out alive. For the first time in Russian!