"Tandros!" Ana called to me as she hurried in from the tavern's common room. I excused myself from the council and allowed her to lead me back to the small room we were using as a hospital. There lay a small girl, filthy and weeping.

Apparently the child had been part of a caravan lost a fortnight ago along the Western Heartlands near the Marsh of Chelimber. Covered in mud and clearly malnourished, she couldn’t do much but cry and cling to Ana’s leg. Sobbing, she told us of an ambush by rogues on a jungle path near an abandoned temple deep in the Sylathorn Swamp. I was familiar with the site, having cornered and killed a werewolf near there some years ago.

We left the next morning, accompanied by Darrak, knowing it could be a trap.

Emerging from behind walls of hanging vines and slithering up out of the water, they came: a score or more of lizardfolk, with more watching us from deeper in the swamp. Most were green, but some had red or yellow highlights, a rarity among their kind. It is well known that most stick to their own colors. I knew immediately what it could mean and that this could bode very ill.

The warriors parted and a larger than average and strangely unarmed lizard man approached us, scanning each of us in turn. Darrak's usual frown deepened to a scowl of disgust.

The "leader" motioned to a group of his kin standing to our left and a stocky, heavily scarred lizard came out, carrying a large, squirming sack. I could hear noises from inside. The creature gently set the sack before us; I looked to Ana to open it.

Moving as cautiously as possible, she opened the sack to reveal the only other survivor of the attack on the caravan: the twin sister of the girl we’d left behind at the tavern. Ana scooped up the child, speaking a few soft reassuring words. "It’s okay sweetie, you’re safe now." She put the child to sleep with a wave of her hand and laid her in the wagon.

What came next was as big a surprise as I've had in my many years as a fighting man: the lizard in charge spoke to us! "I Zogrossss Haaardsssscaale. Weee retuurn chiiildsss. Bhaad Mmennn deeaad. Noooo fiiight, weee traaade." It smiled with knife-like teeth nearly 3 inches in length. Clearing my throat, I replied. "Yes. We trade, no fighting. We’ll work something out with the merchants in the area."

He stretched out his razor-clawed hand as a sign of agreement. I returned the gesture and we shook, something which perhaps no lizardfolk and man had ever done previously. With that, the leader motioned once more and the lizardmen turned, skulking back into the swamps from which they had come.