Dragon & Issola (Vlad series)

Celebrated as one of fantasy's freshest and liveliest voices, Steven Brust is perhaps best know for his witty and wildly popular swashbuckling tales Jhereg, Yendi, and Teckla, in which assassin and crimlord Vlad Taltos struggles to make a living int he perilous Empire of the Dragaerans. Now, in one handy volume, are the two newest adventures of Vlad Taltos, human in aworld of near-immortal Dragaeran "elfs," witch and telepathic partner to the winged-lizard Loiosh. Dragon tells the story htat has bedeviled Vlad's fans for years: how a self-respecting assassin ended up as a soldier on the losing side of the famous Battle of Baritt's Tomb -- an apocalyptic warbetween two sorcerous armies. Since Vlad much prefers the shadows to daylight, and a knife in the back to massed magical battle, you know the answer involves the words "kicking and screaming"... Issola finds an older and slightly wiser Vlad on the run from his employers, the house of jhereg, over the small matter of a double-cross. Unfortunately, he's going to wish he had only the jhereg to worry about, since two of his most powerful friends have been kidnapped by teh Jenoine -- the enigmatic race that may have created the Dragaerans hundreds of thousands of years ago and who are masters of time and space itself. And if that's not enough, the Jenoine apparently want to hire Vlad to kill a God....