"Do you think he has something worth taking, Cerril?"

Angry and paranoid, Cerril turned to the speaker, a small boy of about twelve-a year younger than Cerril. Before the other boy could move, Cerril cuffed his head.

"Ow!" the other boy complained, wrapping his fingers and palms around his head in case Cerril decided to try his luck again. He ducked and took a step back. All of them knew to expect violence when Cerril got upset.

"Whyn't you just announce to the world what we're after here?"

"I'm sorry," the younger boy said ruefully.

"If one of these sailors overhears a question like that," Cerril promised in a harsh whisper, "you're going to have to learn to breathe through your ears because he'll cut your throat for you."

"Not if we cut his throat first." The young boy took a handmade knife from his ragged breeches and dragged the ball of his thumb along the uneven blade's edge. Blood dotted his flesh and he licked at it with his pink tongue.

"Oh, yeah, Hekkel," one of the other boys sneered in a harsh whisper, "and how many throats have you cut this tenday? Or any other tenday? You still ain't killed that man your mama's taken up with this last month."

"Shut up!" Hekkel ordered, taking a small, defiant step forward.

Cerril cuffed the small boy on the head again, eliciting a cry of pain this time.

"Gods' blood, Cerril!" Hekkel cried out. "Stop hitting me."

A passing sailor from one of the ships docked in Alagh?n's harbor glanced over at them. He carried his duffel over his shoulder, a jug of wine in one hand, and had his other arm wrapped around the ample waist of a serving wench Cerril recognized from Elkor's Brazen Trumpet.

"Hey," the sailor grunted, coming to a halt and staring into the shadows of the alley where the seven boys took shelter from scrutiny. "What the Nine Hells are ye children doing out here at this time of night?"

"We're not damned children!" Cerril snapped.

He turned to confront the sailor. Anger burned along the back of his neck. His own mother, like Hekkel's, oft times lived with sailing men on leave from one ship or another that put up prolonged anchorage in Alagh?n's port. He'd never known his father.

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."

"Come on," the serving wench urged, pulling at the sailor's arm and setting him to weaving slightly. "Do you really want to spend tonight explaining to the Watch how you came to kill a few of these boys over some unkind words? Or do you want to come up to my room and amuse me for a few hours?"

The sailor grinned. "Since I got me druthers, we'll seek out the amusement, fair flower." He took a faltering step and rejoined the woman, slipping his arm with the wine jug around her. Then he turned a baleful eye on Cerril and the other boys. "But mark me words, ye scurvy lot. If'n ye cause me any more grief this night, why I'll slice ye and dice ye from wind to water, an' I'll use what's left of ye for chum to catch me breakfast."

Cerril swallowed hard, but he made himself put on a brave front. If he ever showed how scared he sometimes got, he knew the other boys would desert him or find a new leader. While he held that position, he'd not always treated them fairly or well.

A young boy with a lamp he'd probably stolen from a ship or a lax harbor resident called out an offer to guide the sailor and the serving wench through the shadows to their destination. The sailor turned the boy's offer down with a snarling bit of vituperation as the serving wench led him away.

"Good sirs," the boy with the lantern said again, approaching Cerril and his group, "mayhap you'd like a lantern to light your way home this night. For only-"

Then the lantern's cheery glow washed over Cerril and the others, drawing their pale, wan features from the alley's shadows. Cerril grinned and took a threatening step forward, his knife glinting in the lantern light.

"By the pits!" the boy exclaimed, backpedaling a short distance before turning around and running away. The lantern swung wildly at the end of his arm, threading shadows across the two- and three-story buildings fronting the harbor.

"Well," Two-Fingers drawled, "at least you can still scare the local peasants."

Cerril turned to face the other boy. Even large as he was, Two-Fingers still towered over him. Cerril had always disliked that about the other boy, but Two-Fingers's size had allowed him to step into some of the seamier dives around Alagh?n and purchase the occasional bucket of ale the group sometimes shared.

"I can scare more than that," Cerril warned, still holding the knife.

A hint of worry crossed Two-Fingers's face.

"You'd better say it, Two-Fingers," Cerril ordered, the back of his neck burning at the anger that swirled inside him. "You'd better say I can scare more than that. Otherwise I'm going to make sure you only got two fingers on the other hand as well."

That threat of further crippling made Two-Fingers step back into the shadows. After he'd lost the half of his hand while working with his fisherman father, Two-Fingers had been thrown out of the house. There were eight other kids in the household to feed, and having a cripple around wasn't going to improve the family's lot any.

Cerril took a step, going after the other boy. "Say it, Two-Fingers," he ordered again. "Say it or I'll make you sorry."

Two-Fingers backed up against the wall, trapped between a pile of refuse and a nearly full slop bucket from the bathhouse on one side of the alley. He swallowed hard.

"You can," Two-Fingers whispered hoarsely. "You can scare more than that."

His eyes flicked nervously from Cerril's face to the knife in his hand.

Cerril knew the other boys gazed on in naked excitement. Nothing held their interest more than violence, especially when it was directed at someone else.