Olms rode into Zar Yiin as the last light of dusk bled from the sky and rain began pattering down amid the square mudbrick storefronts of the town. Thunder rumbled in the distance.

His mount gurgled with pleasure at the moisture, and Olms swung down from the saddle and gave the lizard's gnarled hide an affectionate slap, bidding her farewell as they parted ways- him into town to get falling-down drunk while she - not a gaan that took well to tyin' up- prowled the rocky wilds just outside Yiin's low clay palisade, digging up a dinner of ashcrabs and centigor eggs.

The few locals still outside, in keeping with the legendary hospitality of Ashlanders, gave Olms suspicious glares and growls of disapproval as he sauntered down the main road. Olms tipped his hat to them as he passed.

Yiin wasn't much of anything, just a handful of buildings huddled together around a brackish spring in the vast emptiness of the Ashlands. Besides the spring- little more than a bubbling, nasty smellin' pond- the only features of any note were the great iron pens in the village square where the Slaver-Clans would display their captive wares to the caravaneers and traveling Drathan magnates come summer. The cages were empty now in the off-season, save for a few silent and desultory Nyr'kiin that clicked and buzzed at Olms as he walked by. He tipped his hat to them, too.

The tavern was the biggest building in town, built in cheap imitation of the pagoda-palaces of the Drathan lords. It was sagging and leaning and weather-beat from years of monsoons and ash storms, curving eaves hung with thorny and leafless vines. Flickering light and thick blue tarric-smoke and the threats and hoarse laughter of dangerous men drinking themselves numb spilled from the doorway.

Olms clicked the hammer back on the flintlock holstered on his side- best to be prepared in these places- and went in to join them.

It was hot and smokey and crowded mostly with the poorer sorta slaver and also, therefore, the poorer sorta whore. Bug hunters, most of 'em. Sallow men with narrow eyes filled with all the meanness comes from a life of huntin' something that can hunt you right back.

Olms gave the dim, long room a leisurely once over. Got plenty of glares and threats back, but saw no sign of his new employer. Must be runnin' late. That was fine with Olms. After six days on the Dust Way, he was ready for a drink or two or seven.

Girl tendin' bar was a stunner. Musta had some Drathan blood in her, on account of the dark hair and eyes and the pale skin. Would also explain why she could serve drinks in a place like this with no one layin' a hand on her.

Curdled, the warlocks called their half-breeds. Good blood gone bad. Olms'd killed his share of wizards in his long life, and knew they bled bright red just like all men did. Usually shit themselves when they died, also like regular folk. But the good people of the Union didn't think so, and so gave even half-Drathans a wide berth.

"What's the strongest thing you got?" he asked her. 

She tilted a bottle of something greenish at him and he threw a couple of silver fangs down on the splintery bar. She poured him a heavy measure of the stuff- nestwine, they called it here, on account of it bein' fermented from the fungus the Nyr'kiin grew in their burrows. 

He knocked it back in a gulp, threw another few fangs on the bar, gestured for another.

She raised an eyebrow and twisted those pretty lips into a skeptical smirk, but she poured.

"Where you headed, stranger?" she asked.

"Right here, darlin," he said, this time sippin' his booze.

"The only man in Zar Yiin who wants to be here," she said.

"I reckon that's not true," said Olms, "Plenty a boys'd stick around just to get another look at you."

It was then that the tavern got real silent real fast, conversations drifting off mid-sentence, laughter muffled too quick, and all eyes went to the doorway.

The man standing there was dressed all in black, face obscured mostly by a dark-colored scarf and a broadbrimmed hat tilted low over his face. Pale skin on his bare arms traced with obscure and beautiful tattoos.  A Drathan. The real article. 

Eyes the color of volcanic glass, no whites, like a shark.

"Olms," said the Drathan.

"Good to see you again, Gabul," said Olms, who alone in the bar was not wearing an expression of confusion or horror. He was sitting relaxed on his bar stool, glass in hand, a resigned smile creasing the crags of his sun-beaten face, "Come have a drink."