"So tell me," Ten said, gingerly picking a scrap of chewy flesh off what had been the leg of a deepstalker. They had found an abandoned tunnel with a very high ceiling and, if the smell of the air was to be trusted, a hole at the top, started a fire, and then roasted the carcass - procured from a butcher - over it, "Do you have to eat anything before you become it?"
"No," Morrigan, "But it helps." She had retaken her human form for the meal and seemed to be enjoying the meat which tasted somewhere between chicken and pheasant, but was stringy and tough. Ten and Zev, by contrast, sort of looked at it, took small bites, and all in all were grateful that neither was hungry enough to think it was good.
"So have you eaten mouse?" Zevran asked, "And sparrow? Rat? Bear?"
"You act like it's crazy," Morrigan said, "You city folks and your picky little palettes." She tore another mouthful of deepstalker flesh of the bones with her canines. Ten and Zevran looked at each other and grimaced.
"I've eaten rat, but that was just out of necessity," Ten said, "And only when I'd been starving long enough I didn't care."
"Really!" Zevran exclaimed.
"The guy who sold it said it was rabbit, but that was obviously a lie," Ten said, "Stew it up there's not much difference."
"Ugh," Zevran shuddered, no doubt thinking about the last time he had eaten rabbit.
The witch finished her meal, wiped her mouth, and belched loudly. Then she stood. She looked at the stone around them as though she were deep in thought. And then, she began to transform, her neck lengthening, then shrinking, her knees bending the wrong way, until before them stood a dark green thing, scaled like a lizard, but shaped like a fowl. It balanced on two legs, each culminating nasty-looking claws, and sported arms splayed out in front of her, short in proportion to the body, but with claws disproportionately long for the arms. The mouth... though. In the dark Ten had not been able to get a good look at it, and the carcass they'd purchase was missing its head. It looked out of place, and Ten realized that she had seen such things before on the curiosity some of the oceangoing fishermen brought back from the deep. It was less a mouth than a hole, surrounded on all sides by rows of needlesharp teeth. Both elves shuddered.
"You should make the scales around your eyes blue," said Ten, shaking off her discomfort, "It only works if you're male."
The creature nodded and the scales around its eyes changed color.
"What do we name her?" asked Zevran.
"The winner of the last cockfight I was at was called Black Bub."
"I'm sorry, the last what?" Zevran exclaimed, taken back.
"Cockfight?" Ten said.
"Tell me that is not what it sounds like."
"Where they get two roosters to peck the shit out of each other until one of them dies?"
"Ah, the thrills of a foreign language."
Ten started giggling, realizing what mistake he'd just made, "Yes, I suppose that would be a different sport entirely."
The deepstalker that was Morrigan tilted its head, but both elves declined to explain the joke.
"Do you need to practice?" asked Ten.
Morrigan shook her green scaly head.
"She's definitely going to cheat," Zevran said.
"Well considering what happens to the losers of these matches, that's probably for the best," Ten said.
Off in the distance, a gong rang out. One. Two. Three. Four.
"Well, there's our cue," Ten said, "Do you want to walk or be carried?"
Morrigan craned her neck at Zevran, who, despite being very obviously uncomfortable with the proposition, picked her up and cradled her under one arm.
"This has got to be the strangest thing I have ever been asked to do," he muttered to himself.
"What are we calling her?"
Zevran looked down at the creature in his arms, "I could not tell you why, but she looks like a Filiberto."
"Filiberto it is," Ten said, ignoring Morrigan's frenzied shaking of the head.
It took them a bit to find their way out of their deadend campsite and back into the Dusttown square. This time they drew a few more stares, clearly news of the strange surfacers having been spread by the kids they'd spoken to. Or perhaps it was the fact that they had just emerged from a spare tunnel carrying a twenty-pound monstrosity. They were, however, in good company as at least one other was dragging a wagon with a caged deepstalker within. They followed this one, noting that, while dwarven, he did not have the markings of a casteless on his face.
The tunnel he took went down and down and down, and Ten began to feel uneasy, as though at any point they might just pop out on the other side of the world entirely. Her sense were not telling her of darkspawn about, though, so there was that for small favors.
The cavern at the end of the tunnel was smaller than the one they had left, but large enough to house an amphitheatre carved right down into the rock. It wasn't all that crowded, either, considering how popular the kids had made it sound. They took their spots down in the front, with the other handlers, who looked them over warily.
"Sure is docile," the inkless dwarf they'd been following commented, "Where'd you get him?"
"Deep Roads," Ten said. She was scanning the crowd for the woman the kids had identified as being the one who runs things.
"And you think he can fight?"
"Well we're about to find out, aren't we."
"I've been in this game twenty years. What's a surfacer know about deepstalkers?"
"I'm a Grey Warden," Ten said, truthfully.
"You're in remarkably good shape for one down here."
"This is not my final visit to the deep," she said, and then added hastily, "At least I hope not."
"You got a name, Grey Warden?"
"Ten Tabris," she said, gingerly extending one hand. Rather than shaking it, this dwarf kissed it gallantly, something that made her want to snatch it back.
"Denek Helmi, lovely to meet your acquaintance," he said, "It's not every day one meets a surfacer this deep in the mountain, let alone an elf."
Ah, so you know the difference.
"Likewise," she said uneasily, "So, Master Helmi, what canyou tell me about this institution? I admit I got goaded into it without really doing my homework."
"It's Lord Helmi, actually," he said, "And… yes, clearly. Though I've never seen a deepstalker, male, female, or otherwise let itself be held like a baby."
"Ah, I see you're slumming it, aren't you my liege," Ten said, putting a teasing edge in her voice. She didn't dare lay it on thick like she would have for a human man. After all, dwarves were very smart, and likely he would have clocked what she was doing if she tried too hard, "But we have similar fights on the surface. Different animals, but the idea's the same."
"Really. What sorts?"
"Cocks," Zevran said, and turned away so nobody could see him having an immature little titter.
"Never seen one," Lord Helmi grunted, "Are they bigger than deepstalkers?"
"They come in many sizes," Ten said, smirking.
"But sometimes the smallest ones can do the most damage," Zevran added.
"It's true. Despite appearances, size is not always an advantage," Ten observed, "But all in all I imagine it's the same idea, yes?"
"Maybe," Lord Helmi said.
"So you're someone important, clearly," Ten said, "What can you tell me about what's going on with the whole… succession drama?"
"Ugh," Lord Helmi groaned, "I'm at the fights, I don't want to talk about politics."
"Fair enough," Ten said, "Could we maybe… buy you a drink?"
"Now that I would take."
Concessions were run by a burly woman who didn't even remark on the strangeness of a surfacer showing up at the fights. She squinted at the money, but coin is coin is coin, and she took the strange surfacer silver and gave Ten a large jug of rye whiskey and three flimsy tin cups, which she brought back to her seat and doled out. By the time the three of them had had enough to be merry, but not stupid, Helmi had completely lost his hesitation and was very happy to talk, at length, about the various folks in charge. From what Ten could gather, the chief conflict was between the son of the previous king, whom Helmi referred to as an ill-mannered smelly lout, and some upstart, whom he called a weaselly two-faced prick. Amid the insults, she could not catch either of these men's actual names, but figured she would find out in due time. There were, of course, a litany of complaints about his noble colleagues, all of them piggish uptight sons of nugs or slovenly lowlife backbirths with delusions of grandeur.
"And don't even get me started on the sodding Daces," Helmi, who was now red in the face, concluded.
Before he could get started on the sodding Daces, a gong sounded. Everyone in the amphitheatre, which Ten would have estimated at between seventy-five and one hundred, rose, and fell silent. From a small door set on the far side of the cavern from the tunnel they had entered through strode two very tall dwarven men. They carried themselves like thugs, and Ten imagined that's what they were. Behind them, at a respectable distance, was a woman. She walked up to a large chair situated on a dais over the arena, and sat. She clapped her hands thrice, and the crowd recommenced its previous roar. She watched, looking over the deepstalkers, of which there were eight, some in cages, a couple being walked on leashes, and then Morrigan, who'd become quite comfortable on Zevran's lap.
The gong sounded again and the chatter died down.
"First match!" the woman, who was very clearly the Jarvia they were seeking, announced, "You. And you." She pointed to two dwarves. One had a smallish deepstalker on a leash, the other had a medium-sized one in a cage, "Roggar over there will take your bets for the next twenty minutes, after that, may the best lizard win."
The owners of the deepstalkers approached the arena, where they were given slates and chalk. They wrote what Ten assumed were the creature's names on them. One was called "Billy McFritter" and the other "Frank."
"Who's your pick?" Ten asked.
"Frank," said Helmi.
"What makes you think that?"
"Slaughtered my last lizard," said Helmi, "It was a bloodbath, guts everywhere."
"You hear that Filiberto?" Ten said to Morrigan, "Protect your guts."
"So how did a man of your standing become involved in this... bloodsport?" asked Zevran, sounding genuinely curious.
"The thing about being a drunk, young man, is that it gets boring, and you start to look for ways to entertain yourself amid the drinking," Helmi drawled, "When I was a much younger man, maybe around your age, one of my manservants told me about this place. Said he and two of his brothers used to come here to watch the fights. They brought me one night, and I was hooked. They're such beautiful animals, the tezpadam... inside and out."
"So you bring them here and make them slice each other up?" Zevran asked.
"It's what they're built for. Who am I to argue with a creature's nature?"
"And what do you know about the woman up there?" Ten asked, a little more impatiently than she intended.
Helmi snorted, and then lowered his voice, "Between you and me, Jarvia's nothing but a two bit crook who thinks she's hot shit because she has the district in a stranglehold. But the folks down here respect her, and if the folks down here are happy, they're not bothering us. And I could ask the same of you, what could you possibly want in a place like this?"
"I'm trying to get the lay of the land," Ten said, deciding to be honest. She wasn't sure exactly how drunk this Lord Helmi intended to get, but was banking on him not remembering everything. She refilled his cup, though it was not even half empty, "See, we're having a bit of a problem on the surface and according to a treaty, we're entitled to your military support. Problem is, there's nobody in charge of that right now."
"Well good luck on that count," Helmi said, "This place is going to rip itself apart any day now."
"You act like you don't even have a choice about it."
"My choice is between a princeling who's mad as three nuglets in a sack and a lord who's slimier than a salamander's taint," Helmi declared, "I couldn't tell you which is worse. But enough of local politics, the whole thing has it so nobody's been in or out in months. What could be happening on the surface that you need our help?"
"The darkspawn have breached the deep with an archdemon at their head. Add to that we just got out of our own succession drama, complete with civil war, which cost us far more of our forces than we could have afforded to lose in a normal year," Ten said.
The gong sounded again, and she turned her attention to the ring where Frank and Billy McFritter had been deposited on opposite sides. The circled each other, making hissing noises for about five minutes before Billy went for Frank's neck. Frank dodged, kicking up one claw to slice at Billy's underside. In Zevran's lap, Morrigan raised her scaly head, examining the fight closely. Absorbed in the action, the group fell silent, but Helmi kept drinking from his cup, and Ten kept refilling it.
"He's going to need to be carried home at some point," Zevran murmured in her ear.
"That's the idea," Ten said under her breath.
"Are you going to rob him?"
"Not of money."
They were interrupted by a collective expression of surprise and disgust from the crowd. Frank had gotten Billy McFritter by the neck with his foreclaws and fastened that strange hole of a mouth to the middle of its back. When the mouth came away, there was a matching circular hole that went right through its rival.
"I get the sense that Frank is into some weird shit," Ten commented.
"He just likes the showmanship," Zev scolded.
The gong sounded again. About half of the crowd, Helmi included, went to go collect their winnings. The fights continued much like this. Not all of them were to the death, which Ten noted and was grateful for. As far as she could tell, each bout was timed, and if both were still hopping at the end of it, stalemate was declared and everyone got their money back. If one lizard retreated or showed its belly, the other was the victor. Only two other deepstalkers died in the ring, the others retreating back to their cages when the gong sounded. Finally, the imperious woman at the top of the arena pointed at Zevran, and then at Helmi.
"Ah, she's seen us talking and wants to see us put our lizards against each other," Helmi observed, "Care to make it interesting?"
"I don't have anything you want," Ten said.
"Don't you?" the lord said, raising his eyebrows
"Please don't make it weird," she sighed.
"Don't flatter yourself, I've seen beanpoles more woman-shaped than you are. I want to see you and your friend there fight in the Proving Ground up top."
"The what now?" asked Zevran.
"It's this, but for people. I've got quite a lot of money on some brat who thinks he's untouchable eating dirt, and I suspect he will not know what on earth to do with you."
"To first blood, right?" Ten checked. Of course they'd have something like that. All their learning and refinement and they love watching two creatures tear each other apart as much as any of us.
Helmi snorted, "Of course not."
"And what do we get if ours trounces yours?" asked Ten.
"A favor," he said, "Whatever you like."
"I want you to start attending all those assembly meetings and tell me exactly what goes on in there," Ten said.
"Do you have any idea how boring those are?" he groaned.
"Do you want us in that arena or not?" Ten asked.
"Fine. Deal."
Morrigan made a noise that was half hiss and half whistle. Zevran picked her up and walked forward, depositing her in the arena. Ten could see, and wasn't sure if anyone else had noticed, that the witch had added a long, curved claw to each of her foreclaws that Ten did not see on the other deepstalkers. Well, roosters come in all varieties. Some are black, some are red, spurs of all shapes and sizes.
They circled each other. Ten worried for a moment that maybe the witch actually didn't know what she was doing at all. She did tend to think she was always the smartest person in the room even when she clearly was not, after all. Well, worst that happens if we lose is… gladiatorial combat. I think I could do that. Zev certainly could. Then again, if Morrigan dies on my watch, is Flemeth going to track me down and… do whatever weird frightening crones with vast arcane power do to people who get their daughters killed? I don't suppose leaving the country and changing my name would do much to keep me from that fate…
She needn't have been concerned. While Morrigan was perhaps not nearly as smart as some of the others she had sat around the fire with, she was smarter than a strange underground chicken-lizard-eel with a brain the size of a walnut. Her opponent, whom Helmi had named Henk, was smaller than she was, and while perhaps bred for being able to fight, had absolutely no idea what to do. While Morrigan looked like an appropriate foe to the dwarves surrounding them, Ten imagined she did not feel or smell like a fellow to the actual animal she was mimicking. Morrigan flashed her oversized foreclaws. Henk froze like if he didn't move, he could not be seen. This was a bad move for him. Fortunately for poor Henk, Morrigan did not have as much a sadistic streak as Frank did and simply strutted right up to the gobsmacked creature and raked one of those large foreclaws right across his breast. Henk, wounded and confused as all getout, made a beeline for his cage which was on its wagon in front of Lord Helmi, who groaned as the creature leapt in where it was safe and, getting the door in his own foreclaws, pulled it closed behind him.
"I think that's a win for Filiberto," Zevran said, looking up at the woman on the dais. She shrugged, and banged the gong.
"Fi - Fili- the surfacer's lizard wins," she declared, "Go get your money. Next match, you… and you."
Ten breathed a sigh of relief as Zevran returned with Morrigan at his heels, but tensed again when she felt a heavy hand on one shoulder. She turned to see one of Jarvia's heavies, all arm hair and face tattoos over and above what they gave the casteless, standing behind her.
"Boss lady wants to talk to the topsiders," he grunted.
"Excellent," Ten said, "Because I want to talk to her."
"Follow me. Bring the lizard. And… whatever that is," the heavy said, gesturing at Pigeon, who was surprisingly not really all that interested in the fights.
"I hope you know what you're doing, manita," Zevran murmured in her ear, following far too close behind her.
"Don't forget our bet," she called back to Helmi, making to follow the goon towards the small door in the back of the arena.
"Right," Helmi said, who was still staring in disbelief at what a complete coward his prized deepstalker had been, "You'll find me at the pub."
"Which one?"
"Any of them if you wait long enough."
The door they were led through opened onto yet another tunnel, which bent uphill, and then sharply to the left, back in the direction of the Dusttown square. Or did it? Ten was trying her best to keep her bearings, but the environment was entirely foreign to her. Cities she could read like the back of her hand, and even out in the open country, some sort of latent ancestral memory let her remember landmark trees and track the topography of the land, but underground…. I'm probably worse than useless.
The tunnel spat them out in a room that was at once completely alien and strangely familiar, dominated by a large table that looked much like the one in her own war room.
"Have a seat," the heavy grunted. Ten obeyed, finding the proffered chair quite comfortable. Zev did as well, but had to settle for pulling his out as his knees would not fit under the table. Morrigan made another hissing noise - Ten could not tell what it meant, and sat herself in the corner alongside Pigeon, who recognized the smell of her anywhere, and did not ask any questions.
"I suppose she will make us wait," Zevran observed.
"Certainly will," Ten said. She put the jug of whiskey she'd purchased at the arena on the table.
"You're not serious."
"We're guests," said Ten, "Can't show up emptyhanded, can we. You still have your cup?"
"I took that drunken lord's too," Zevran admitted, producing both from somewhere, "And yours."
Ten rummaged through her pack, "This is only a contingency," she said, finding what she was looking for. She'd spent the journey into the mountains drying and then pounding the mushrooms purchased from Sybil Cawdrey outside of Lowstrand in a fine powder. She tipped some of it into a small glass vial, which she stoppered, "Just watch me carefully and don't drink anything you oughtn't."
"What about you?"
"I spent about a month of my twentieth winter with my guts turning themselves inside out to be immune to this stuff," she grunted.
"Are you sure you are not Antivan?"
"Not even a little bit," she said. She loosed the buckles on her left vambrace and shoved the vial between the leather and the inside of her wrist. .
"The Crows would love you."
"They loved you at one point, didn't they."
"They did, until you came along."
"Are you angry I spoiled it for you?" she asked. They had not really discussed the fact that Ten had, in a matter of minutes, completely destroyed whatever life he had had before their paths had crossed. Of course she didn't actually feel guilty about it, she truly had not had a choice in the matter. But she wouldn't blame him if he harbored some hard feelings about it.
"A veces," he said after a long silence.
"If it makes you feel better, my own life got turned pretty much upside down as well."
"And yet you will not let me comfort you in the way I know best!"
"Why do you do that?" she asked.
"What, throw myself at you shamelessly?"
"Yes, that. Doesn't it get old?"
"It is my fate to forever want what I cannot have."
"So if I said fine, right now, on this table, after that it would be boring for you?"
Behind them, Morrigan made an alarmed lizard noise.
"Oh, eventually," he said, "After all, eating the same meal day after day becomes dull no matter how delicious it is. It would be such an interesting few months, though. You would not regret it. But you are not going to say that, are you."
She chuckled and shook her head, "Not a chance."
Zevran opened his mouth to say something, probably an admonishment to the effect of 'never say never' but before he could, a door at the far end of the room and in walked the boss lady herself, flanked by two more slabs of dwarven muscle. Both elves rose, but were told to sit again with a flippant gesture. Up close, Jarvia was medium-sized and slightly-built - for a dwarf anyway - but carried herself with the air of a much larger woman. She sat herself at the head of the table, and clasped her hands in front of her.
"So," she said, her voice brusque, "You've come to my territory, thrown great sodding amounts of gold around like it's nothing, and brought some sort of surface magic to rig my deepstalker fights. Congratulations, you have my attention. So, tell me who you are and what in the stone it is you want before I have you both cast into the Deep Roads."
"I didn't realize the gold would be a problem," said Ten.
"Don't play with me, elf. That is what you are, right? According to everything I know about the surface, you come from a place like this, so you know very well what the rules are. That means you know that a woman in my position keeps that position because she controls what people get, and what they don't get. So tell me who you are and what you want."
Ten cocked her head to the side. That is not at all how it works up top. At least not for me. Then again there is some logic to it. If she's the only game in town, of course everyone does what she says.
"Well, that is certainly not what the rules are where I am from," said Ten, "So I hope you'll forgive the misunderstanding. My name is Teneira Tabris of the Denerim Alienage, and I need military support from your government. Obviously you are not a member of that government, but I imagine you have some pull."
"And why do you think that?"
"Because I think that you and I have quite a bit in common, and I have some pull where I am from," Ten said, drawing herself up straight and crossing her arms, "I was hoping the two of us might talk as colleagues."
"What's your trade?"
"Information. What's yours?'
"Protection."
Ah shit, she's just a thug like Boss Guilder isn't she.
"You do business on the higher levels or just down here?"
"I'm expanding."
"And I'm guessing that chaos in the assembly has helped with that."
"It has. How do you think I can help you?"
"Information," said Ten, "You know that absent bloody revolution one of the two contenders will wind up on the throne. You must have gamed out what will happen in either eventuality."
"I have. Why should I tell you about it?"
"Well, professional courtesy dictates that I take into consideration what you have to say about it before attempting to place my finger on the scale and resolve it once and for all."
Jarvia's gaze flickered to each of her goons, neither of whom reacted, "And if I want chaos to reign as long as possible?"
"There are other ways to maintain chaos," said Ten, "Your people keep the sewers working, don't they? Keep those up top supplied in meat and leather. Scrub the floors. Wash the dishes. I'm just saying… if a few well-timed strikes can bring a city like Denerim to its knees, imagine what it would do in a place like this."
At this, Jarvia leaned forward on the table, a gleam in her dark eyes, clearly more interested in this strange surfacer than she had been when she walked in, "What's a strike?"
Ten blinked a couple of times, but eventually took a breath and launched into one of her favorite lectures. At the end of it, Zevran was nodding off onto the table and behind them, Morrigan had tucked her lizard head into the crook of Pigeon's neck and fallen asleep. Jarvia, however, having heard her out, her eyes widening and narrowing. When Ten had reached the end of her sermon, she nodded, "I'll take that under advisement. As to the succession, as far as I can tell, they're both terrible choices. There's Prince Bhelen, he's a little peculiar, not really given to tradition, which is both a blessing and a curse. He promises reform to the caste system, but that'll be the day… and then, according to rumor, old king Endrin used his dying breath to disiherit the prince and name a member of the peerage, one lord Harrowmont…"
"Wait, what?" Ten said, sitting up in alarm.
"Pyral, Lord Harrowmont," Jarvia said.
"Seriously?"
"Why, do you know that name?"
"Yes," said Ten, "Did he inherit his title from his sister?"
"Brother," Jarvia said, looking at her suspiciously, "But either way, he's married to tradition which, of course, is not always good for those of us down below, but would probably do precious little to interrupt business as usual. Which is good."
"Good?" Ten asked.
"Yes," Jarvia said, "You see, surfacer, business as usual is good. For me. You clearly have some novel ideas about the world, which may serve you well up top, here…"
"But some things are the same…" Ten began, but was silenced with a gesture from Jarvia.
"I have spent my youth fighting to the top of this midden heap," Jarvia said, "And while I am always interested in learning about the world, the last thing I need in my territory is some uppity topsider giving notions to my people that maybe they don't need me."
Whoops.
"Well then," Ten said, "My associate and I will leave your territory forthwith. My apologies for the intrusion." She picked up the jug of whiskey and brought it down beneath the table as though to put it back in her pack. Before corking it, she tipped the contents of the vial stuck in her left vambrace into it.
Jarvia began chuckling, "No, no. I know your type. You're not a real crook. You're a true believer. I've met kids like you before. Self-righteous sanctimonious little sods, the lot of you."
Ten sighed, as though just now realizing she wasn't leaving without a fight. She put the jug back on the table, and let the boss lady speak.
"And the thing about true believers, like you, Teneira Tabris of wherever the fuck you're from, is that they never know when to stop. So I don't know what I'm going to do with you yet, I'm not sure of the diplomatic implications of course, but it is certainly not going to be letting you leave right now. Roggar, throw these surfacers in a cell. Keep them there while I send some feelers upstairs and figure out who they really are."
"Yes ma'am," the tattooed goon grunted.
In a flash, the lizard that had been Morrigan disappeared. Before Ten could realize what was happening, she saw the hindquarters of a rat wriggling under the door they had come in. I'm going to give her the benefit of the doubt and hope she's going for help.
"Knew it," Jarvia grunted.
Ten got up, drawing her dagger and unhooking Bannkiller from her belt, and went to follow. "I really don't want to do this the hard way, so how about you call off your hounds, and we all walk out of here on two working legs."
"Yeah, good luck with that," Jarvia snorted. She rose and, on her way out of the room, slapped her hand against another gong which had been hanging on the wall.
The thugs in the meeting room were nothing to write home about. They were muscle and power, while Ten and Zevran were speed and dirty tricks. Neither were the next wave of seven or so who stormed in after them. By the time they had dispatched the third such squad, though, both elves were getting tired, Zevran was sporting a newly broken collarbone and a blow to the jaw that had the blood trickling from his mouth, and Ten had received several blows to the face that had one eye swollen shut. Even Pigeon was bleeding from a torn ear and had gotten a mighty thump on her poor doggy head. Hoping that was the last of them, Ten went for the door back out into the arena, hoping against hope that they could simply walk out of there.
"You don't suppose she has more?" Zevran commented, spitting a stream of red onto the stones.
On cue, the door swung open, and the telltale slap of a dozen billy clubs on a dozen leather gloves was all the answer they needed.