Two cloaked men stood like twin monoliths against the crumbling stone of a derelict alleyway. Here, the dampness of the city's underbelly had bred a thick, slick moss that seemed to consume what little natural light dared to reach the cobbles, enriching the oppressive grey of the stone with a sickly, bruised green.
Total darkness pressed in from all sides, held back only by the guttering, orange flicker of a single torch. The light danced across their heavy cowls, casting shadows where darkness once reined.
"Shoddy work," one of them suddenly intoned. The voice was a tectonic grate, rough as bark, with a thick, phlegmy resonance of a man who had breathed too much swamp muck and gutter smoke.
"Mh?" Ebran grunted, his eyes fixed on the darkness.
"It was shoddy work. What you did out there," the man repeated.His hand' heel pressing against his nose to scratch it.
