Scale Insects in New Mexico (1892)

Beneath the floorboards of a shady tavern in the town of Brimstone, there hides a world of crooks and lies. The once enslaved race of shape-shiftersamen and women that can become beasts at willahad finally been freed after centuries of struggle. In the underground of Brimstone, however, itas as if nothing has changed. Illegal battles in which shape-shifters fight to the death flourish in an arena beneath the city. Scoundrels flock from across the world to bait their Shifters against one other for money and glory. Moesin and Hazin, the owners of the underground arena, are the richest men in Brimstone because of it. But when the secrecy of their arena is threatened, and their lives with it, Moesin and Hazin find they have no choice but to abandon their creation. Blackmailed into playing hero to a stolen tribal princess, Moesinas former love interest, the two set off on a journey with Draeden, their shifter fighting champion. Having rested so long in the lap of luxury, none of the three are prepared for what awaits them beyond the city limits of Brimstone. Their journey brings them to foreign and hostile lands, each one governed by generations of rivalry and prejudice. On their journey they encounter individuals even more crooked than they, and slowly each begins to realize that there is no trusting the outside worlda] or each other.