“What do ye have for the taking?” she asked.
She was straight to the point. That’s what these demons wanted—food or anything of value. They’d been known to take animals, too, or whatever caught their fancies. Rumor had it they were part of Clan Ruthven, or even Clan Keith, a lowly clan that was the enemy of Clan Lindsay. This vale was part of Lindsay lands, but that didn’t matter to the demons. They had claimed it.
He shook his head to her question.
“Nothing,” he said. “Only a few wild bird eggs.”
“Wild bird eggs?” she said excitedly. “Let me see.”
Reluctantly, he pulled forth a cloth from inside his longleine, or tunic, that now had speckles of his blood around the neckline. He tried to be careful about opening up the folded cloth, but the lass threw it back in her excitement to see the tiny, speckled eggs.
In fact, the entire group of children leaned over him curiously, nearly crowding him out, and he looked up nervously into the pale, dirty faces. Ten or more of them. Enough to beat his arse and steal his little eggs, at the very least.
“Look at the eggs!” the red-haired lass exclaimed. “What are ye tae do with them?”
Cam folded up the cloth again, quickly, tucking it back into hisleineto keep them warm. “Give them tae my grandfather,” he said. “He has a birdhouse where he keeps them.”
“Tame birds?”
“Aye.”
It was a rather foreign concept considering the only birds these children knew were the ones they stoned and ate. The red-haired lass was looking at him very curiously.
“Do they stay tae the birdhouse?” she wanted to know.
“Aye.”
“Are they friendly?”
“If ye feed them well.”
That was enough for her. “I want tame birds,” she said. “Give me yer eggs.”
Cam frowned. “Nay. Ye can find yer own.”
It was the lass’ turn to frown. She balled a fist and put it right in his face. “I’ll fight ye for them.”
“I dunna know how tae fight.”
She blinked, as if startled by the answer. “Ye dunna know?” she repeated. “But… but everyone knows.”
“Not I.”
“Then I’ll take them!”
With that, she grabbed at hisleineas she tried to get to the eggs, but Cam rolled away from her, trying to escape. He rolled into the legs of the children that were standing around him and that was as far as he could go.
“Dunna do that,” he said, a flash of something intimidating in his eyes. “These eggs are for my granda. I will bring ye some eggs of your own the next time I go looking.”
Something in the way he said it conveyed sincerity, the softly uttered vow of an honorable young man. More than that, there was something powerful about him as he stood up to her.
“Promise ye’ll bring me more or ye’ll not leave the vale,” she said.
Cam looked around at the rough-looking children. They probably would keep him here, too, tied to a tree. When he didn’t return home, his grandfather would find his rotting corpse, an ignoble ending to the short life of Cam Netherton.
With that thought, his answer was the obvious one.
“I promise,” he said reluctantly. “Can I go now?”
