A Ratkin ambush

Your ki feels it before you can even hear them.

You hear them before you smell them.

You smell them before you see them.

And somewhere in the air, you taste them. You taste them on your tongue and in your nose.

Ratkin. And you can smell and taste their sweat. Not the sweat of labor or simple movement on a warm day; but of fear, of anticipation. You can smell the steel on their bodies, and hear it rustling in sheaths or naked - grinding against fur beneath their sparse clothing.

You body feels something familiar. Tension drains from you. It has been too long since you killed something, and your own anticipation feels good. From their movement it feels like they aren't chasing another - they are after you, an apparent visitor to their unwholesome little corner of the outlying city district; a person without ties, without a gang or family or history with the watch, a nobody that couldn't seek retaliation against them.

Ratkin are generally small (by human standards, reasonably sized by gnome or goblin standards), furry, and surprisingly cleanly given the fact that they prefer to eek out their busy, short lives in the filth left behind by the civilization of other races. Being a maid, building custodian, or sewer cleaner is generally the highest calling of the most ambitious and intelligent Ratkin. Few make it that far; and instead beg, eat garbage, and generally fight unproductively over scraps left behind by others. Many turn to mugging or other unsavory activities that have quick potential for money at minimal dedication or persistence. Even without training they are almost universally fierce when **** is called for, and dangerous in packs or when cornered individually; able to turn almost anything into a weapon and attacking with sharp incisors. For the most part they breed fast and die young, their women outnumbering their men two-to-one and typically carrying litters of four to ten younglings, each with a high mortality rate.

You don't allow yourself a smile, but you feel it in your insides, as by their standards the Ratkin 'silently' surround you.

You can pay them at no harm to yourself, you can persuade them with a silver tongue that's gotten you out of far stickier situations, you can probably use a ridiculous variety of magical items or potions on them, or of course you can kill them. Or some combination of those.

Dealing with these fools is not a problem; but for the first time in a little while, with your retirement just starting, your mind isn't yet made up on how to handle this. What would be best?