"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.
"Cerril," Kerrin called out in an anxious whisper. "There's your sister."
The other boy's words drew Cerril's attention. He gave Two-Fingers a quick, cold smile.
"Just you mark my words, Two-Fingers. I'm not going to put up with being questioned."
"I won't question you again, Cerril. I swear."
Two-Fingers touched his maimed hand to his chest. Most of his pride and spirit had gone with those missing fingers, and his father kicking him out of the house had robbed the tall boy of whatever hadn't been taken by the accident.
"If you do," Cerril said, unable to leave it alone, "you'll be back to hiring yourself out to them old sailors."
Two-Fingers's face flushed with rage and shame. All that had been a year ago, before Cerril had accepted him into their group. No one ever spoke of that time again. At least, not to Two-Fingers's face. Cerril didn't allow it.
In the beginning, Two-Fingers had been deathly loyal to Cerril for letting him join the gang. It meant he got to eat without selling himself. The other boys stole food from their own homes and brought it to him in the streets. Cerril had established that routine as well. As hard as he was on them, Cerril also took care of them.
"Cerril," Kerrin called again. He waved frantically. "It's your sister."
Blowing out an irritated breath, Cerril turned from Two-Fingers and quickly joined Kerrin at the front of the alley again. He pressed himself against the wall and hid in the shadows.
"So do you think this man has gold?" Hekkel asked again.
Cerril resisted the impulse to cuff the younger boy again. Hekkel's thoughts invariably turned to gold. Before he'd been slain by a thief, Hekkel's father had been a jeweler in Alagh?n's Merchant District. When Hekkel's father was alive, the family lived in a fine house, and members of the Assembly of Stars-the freely elected ruling body of Turmish-had shopped there. That was six years ago, and Hekkel's family had discovered that the city wasn't generous to widows and half-grown children. Hekkel remained convinced that gold could change someone's life. He was living proof that not having it could change lives, too.
As for himself, Cerril knew that having gold only changed a person's life as long as that person had gold and spent it freely. Gold seldom came his way, but he took the coppers and the occasional silver without complaint. Unfortunately, coppers and the occasional silver spent quickly.
"Do you see your sister?" Hekkel asked from behind Cerril.
"Yes," Cerril growled. "Now shut up before I have Two-Fingers bust your nose for you." He said the last because he knew it would give Two-Fingers back some of his self-respect and standing among the group.
"Just let me know when you need it done, Cerril," Two-Fingers offered. "I'll smash the little bastard's nose good and proper."
Cerril ignored them, seeking out Imareen at the back of Elkor's Brazen Trumpet just across the broad cobblestone street leading down to the docks and shipyards. His sister, fathered by another sailor than the one who had fathered Cerril, stood limned in the shadow of the alley behind the tavern.
Imareen's thin, straight figure rarely drew even the drunkest sailor's eye, but she was one of the fastest serving wenches in the city. She'd inherited her lashing tongue from their mother, and her skill with verbal abuse was legendary. Cooks and merchants feared her, and the small bit of power given her by Elkor himself sometimes went to her head.
But Elkor didn't increase her tenday draw at the tavern, and all the other serving wenches at the Brazen Trumpet got large tips. When Cerril had suggested that he and his band would reward her for pointing out potential robbery victims, Imareen had hesitated only momentarily. They'd been working together the last four months.