“Two worlds, barbarian and Roman, were still opposed to each other at the end of the 6th century. Under the onslaught of peoples who came from beyond the Rhine and Danube, the Western Roman Empire fell. Another part of the once powerful power, the Eastern Roman Empire - Byzantium - continued to exist. Its capital was Constantinople, the greatest city of its era. But it was not only the invasions of new peoples that tormented the old world in this century. His own passions were raging inside him. In the rush of events, no one could yet say what would prevail: day or night.” The events of the novel unfold in 576–578 during the Slavic invasion of Byzantium and the conquest of Eastern Europe by the nomadic Avars. Main scenes: Thrace (present-day Bulgaria) and Constantinople, Slavic lands beyond the Danube (today Romania), and partly Italy tormented by the Lombards. The hero of the novel, Ambrose, is a boy who came from Byzantium to the barbarians. He is a witness to many events of the last act of the Great Migration. A slave in the empire, Ambrose becomes free in the land of the pagans. His teachers and friends are warriors and children who dream of becoming equal to Perun. His world is the forests and mountains of the Carpathians, beautiful and restless. Over several years full of discoveries and adventures, the main character goes from a Thracian shepherd to a freedom-loving and brave man. He is surrounded by representatives of different nations, Goths, Romans, Gepids and Croats, as well as soldiers of the empire, robbers-scamaras and ordinary people of different tribes. The fierce struggle in the book is waged by prominent personalities of that era: the Avar Kagan Bayan, the prince of the Sklavins Davrit, the Byzantine emperors Justin II and Tiberius Constantine.