That two faced son of a jackal!  

Amal was not unused to working dangerous jobs for the right price. He had killed men for coin and stolen for his own desire. But to be requisitioned like this with no true reward was not something he was used to! Not out of some sense of pride, but lack of care and worth. If he was not doing something he found enjoyable nor profitable, he simply did not do it. But alas, it seemed as if he had little choice. He would rather keep his soul, or whatever it was this entity was threatening him with. If it meant he could slit a throat tomorrow, he would do this task, but would likely attempt to find this [i]woman[/i] when he had the time and make her pay for enslaving him to this task. 

Yet all the sudden his world went dark, and he found himself slowly coming to on the hard ground. Oddly enough, he felt a strange tickle on his skin, and finally registered it was grass. He was unused to grass, or any of the verdant landscape he saw now that his eyes were open. He was a bandit of the desolate regions, but he supposed he could get used to this. Amal hopped to his feet with the flexibility of a monkey and the agility of a panther, crouched and glancing left and right, his knife in his hand as if he had plucked it out of thin air. 

It was then he noticed he even had his knife, and idly he felt for the sword at his hip and the sack of belongings at his waist. He wore his usual attire too. How did all of this come about? 

"Sorcery..." he hissed in frustration, but otherwise he kept quiet to hear the others speak. They did not seem hostile, and after a moment or two, he realized they too were as confused and lost as he was. They must have experienced the same dream-like state, which meant it had truly happened. Wonderful, it had not been some warped dream. Even as the strange humanoid sang and the blue woman sent her hawk into the distance, another one declared himself loudly and began to walk. 

Amal merely watched him for a moment as he strode down the sloping incline, before turning to the others. "I say await the bird. A city means food and gold." 

Though one was a man and the other an animal, in Amal's experience, it was men who lied, not beasts. He should know, he lied for most of his life.