Our mercenary brothers might have lied, and I wouldn't be surprised if they did. Like, wolves are a clan of snakes. Seriously, what other job could it be?
Yes, but after that, we'll still have 17 people left, and we'll have some chance, however small, to turn the situation around. In the arena, we're essentially going all-in, and if we fail, we'll irrevocably lose our strongest fighter (well, maybe Revan will allow a resurrection, but it's very, very, very possible that he won't, or maybe Burturgak will cut off his head after the kill, or something like that).