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close and personal.”
    “That’s our idea exactly. Can you tell him that we’re here?”
    “Who’s here?” she demanded, shaking her head skeptically.
    “Dram Feldspar,” said the dwarf, standing and reaching across the bar to shake her hand. “Originally from Kayolin. Tell Cornellus that we’ve brought a bounty he’ll be interested in. He’ll want to see us right quick.”
    “It’s your own funeral,” the old woman muttered. “That’ll be two steel,” she said. “I think you better settle up now.”
    “Two steel for three drinks?” sputtered the dwarf.
    “One steel for the drinks,” she replied, glaring at him. “Another for making me go back there and face Cornellus.”

C HAPTER T HREE

A B ANDIT L ORD

    T he hag had been gone for about five minutes, her absence arousing an increasingly restive thirst along the length of the bar, when a door slammed somewhere in the back of the room. A sudden hush fell over the chamber as a hulking bozak draconian emerged from the shadows, swaggering and sneering. He held his muscular wings half-spread as he advanced, an arrogant gesture that forced customers to back out of his way or get whipped by one of the stiff, leathery pinions.
    This draconian was even bigger than the gatekeeper. A least a dozen heavy chains draped his neck, jangling as he walked. A belt of the yellow metal encircled his lean waist, and golden cuffs gleamed from his ankles and wrists. He halted before the dwarf and the warrior, looming over them. Massive, taloned fists rested on his hips, and his forked tongue flickered out insolently, almost brushing the man’s nose. The warrior didn’t flinch, though his eyes narrowed slightly.
    “You got the bounty? You show me the bounty,” growled the bozak.
    The human glanced sideways at his companion, and the dwarf raised his right hand to show a strand of cord that pierced a number of leathery flaps, like some crude, gigantic necklace.
    “A score of goblin ears!” declared Dram Feldspar, tossing the grisly strand toward the draconian—who made a flailing swipe to try and catch it but had to bend over, muttering, to pick it up off the sawdust-covered floor. A growl rumbled within that massive chest, as he squinted at the first ear.
    “Huh, real goblin.” He nodded in apparent satisfaction, and starting sliding the dried ears past his fingers on the leathery strand. “Four … eight, ten … twelve, fourteen, sixteen, eighteen. Yep, two more makes a score.”
    He looked at the pair with somewhat more interest, filmy lids half-closing over the vertical slit pupils of his snake’s eyes. “Come this way. Cornellus will see you. If he likes you, you might even come back out alive.” The draconian threw back his head and roared with laughter that was echoed by appreciative chuckles from the dozen or so other draconians in the rooms.
    The hobgoblins, close relatives of the goblin race, were not laughing. Instead, they glared murderously at the bounty hunters. One burly chieftain put his hand around the hilt of his knife, but—at a sharp glance from the bozak—made no move to draw the weapon.
    Still chuckling, the gold-bedecked messenger raised a paw, the sharp talon of his forefinger extended like a stiletto toward the door at the back of the inn. The bozak stood back to let the visitors pass in front of him. The man led the way while Dram Feldspar stepped right behind, with a glance at the draconian who followed at a respectful distance.
    Two baaz draconians armed with short swords flanked the sturdy, iron-strapped door. At a nod from the bozak, one of them pulled it open and the other drew his weapon, warily studying the dwarf and the human. The two sauntered inside.
    Cornellus the Large was seated upon a stout wooden throne, a chair that would have held two normal sized men with room to spare. The bandit lord not only covered the seat, his body seemed to bulge outward over either arm of the massive platform. His half-ogre lineage was