E.C. Tubb 
Winds of Gath 
The Dumarest Saga Book 1

This is the tale of Earl Dumarest. Space-wanderer, gladiator-for-hire, seeker of Man’s forgotten home.Dumarest’s search begins on the ghost-world of Gath, where he becomes unwilling champion of the Matriarch of Kund, and must undergo a fight-to-the-death at stormtime.Victory could give Dumarest his first clue to the whereabouts of the planet he fled from as a child — an obscure world scarred by ancient wars, which lies countless light years from the thickly populated centre of the galaxy; a world no-one else in the inhabited universe believed exists.Earth, the birthplace of Man.(First published 1967)