The sailor laughed, already three sheets to the wind. The serving wench wasn't in much better shape.

"Ye're children," the sailor argued. "Maybe ye're mean, nasty, Cyric-blasted children, but ye're still children."

Cerril's knife leaped to his hand and he started forward. He was big for his age, almost as tall as the sailor and easily as heavy with the broad shoulders and thick chest he'd gotten from the man who'd sired him. He'd also gotten the terrible temper that filled him now. At least, that was what his mother told him when she yelled at him.

"Ye going to come at me with that little tooth, boy?" the sailor taunted. He released the woman and stepped away from her, then drew the cutlass at his side. Moonlight silvered the blade. "If'n ye do, it'll be the last thing ye do this night, I'll warrant ye that."

Cerril stared at the thick blade and felt cold fear twist through his bowels. In stories he told the others in his pack, he'd confronted grown men with weapons before and bested them. Of course, in reality he'd only dealt with men too drunk to defend themselves.

"Oh, leave off these children, Wilf," the serving wench said. "They're just out for a bit of fun. Boys playing at being fierce men, that's all."

The sailor treated Cerril and his mates to another black scowl. He cursed and spat, and the spittle splashed against the cobblestones near enough to Cerril's feet to make him take an involuntary step back.

Cerril bumped into Two-Fingers, who was called that because he'd lost two fingers in a fishing accident. Two-Fingers's sour stench filled Cerril's nose for a moment. Two-Fingers was the only one of them who lived on the streets and truly had no place to go.

"Well, I've got some words for boys playin' at bein' men," the sailor warned. "I've dealt with a few cutpurses an' other assorted rabble in other ports, an' I'm not a man to trouble over trouble for long. An' from the looks of this pack of wild apes, trouble is all they're after."