Nuala O'Malley Part 23

"It is ill to sunder a force of men, master," quoth Turlough. "If those hors.e.m.e.n of O'Donnell's are encamped in a valley two miles to the north, it is a vale of which I know well. But we must mind this--if O'Donnell gets safe into Galway again with either these hors.e.m.e.n or those Millhaven pirates of his clan, he will drive hard against Bertragh."

"The Dark Master shall come no more to Galway," said Brian grimly, fingering his ax. "Now finish, and quickly."

"I have a plan in my mind, master; but unless we slay the Dark Master, it is like to fail us. Let us send a hundred of the men around to the north, for I will tell them how to ride, so that by this night they can fall upon those men of his and scatter them in the darkness, and drive them south where we can slay them utterly at our wills. If we drove them back whence they came, there would be little craft in it, and it is to my liking to do a thing well or not at all."

"A true word there," nodded Brian, his eyes gleaming. "I think those men are as good as dead now, Turlough. Speak on."

"With fifty men, master, you and I can reach the valley of the Dubh Linn. We cannot do it with horses, unless we ride around to the north, and in that there would be danger of striking on the Dark Master's scouts. But while our hundred are circling far around, we with fifty can go over the mountain by valleys and paths I know of, so that by this evening we will come to the Black Tarn and strike the Dark Master as our hundred men fall on his camp. That is my--"

"Good!" cried Brian, leaping up eagerly. "Then we--"

"Hold, master!" And Turlough caught his arm, quickly staying him. When Brian looked down he read a sudden fear in the old man's gray eyes.

"That was my first rede, Yellow Brian, and you would do well to hear my second also."

"Say it," said Brian, and glanced at the brightening sky.

"My second rede is this. That message might be a trap to ensnare us, though I have two minds about this Black Woman. But if we fail to slay the Dark Master at the Black Tarn, we are like to have an ill time."

"Why so?" asked Brian, for he could see no likelihood of that. "I said that we would slay him."

"Master, do you hold the lives of men in your keeping?" In the gray eyes leaped a swift horror that amazed Brian. "I tell you that if the Dark Master escapes from our hand, and his men are driven past our fifty into the south, he will ride hard before us into Galway. I see evil in that first rede of mine, Yellow Brian. I see evil in it--"

He broke off, staring past Brian with fixed and unseeing eyes, his face rigid.

"Turlough, are you mad?" Brian seized the other's shoulder, shaking him harshly. The old man shivered a little, and sanity came back into his eyes as they met the icy blue of Brian's. "What daftness is upon you, man?"

"I know not, master," whimpered old Turlough feebly. "Do as you will."

"Then I will to follow your rede, divide my men as you say, and when we have slain the Dark Master, we will cut off the last of these O'Donnells of his, ride to Millhaven and take that hold, and send word to the Bird Daughter that she may keep Bertragh Castle and send Cathbarr north to me. Now go, and tell a hundred of the men how to ride around this mountain; then be ready to guide me over it to the Black Tarn."

"You are a hard man, Yellow Brian," said Turlough, and turned him about and did as Brian had ordered.

None the less, Brian gave some thought to that second rede of Turlough's. He saw clearly enough that with the northern hors.e.m.e.n driven past, scattered though they might be, they could be cut off to a man if the Dark Master were slain. But if O'Donnell should escape by some trick of fate, he could gather up his men and drive south.

"If he does that, there will be slaying between Sligo and Galway," swore Brian quickly. "But I cannot see that he will escape me here. When another day breaks, I shall have won my Spanish blade again--and then ho! for the Red Hand of Tyr-owen!"

So Brian laughed and donned his jack and back-piece, while Turlough drew plans in the snow and showed the leaders of the hundred how to sweep around without discovery so that they might fall on the northern hors.e.m.e.n at eve.

Brian had grown into an older and grimmer man since the day he had stood beside the bed of Owen Ruadh O'Neill, short though the time had been.

Youth was still in his face when he smiled out, but suffering had deepened his eyes and sunk his cheeks and drawn the skin tighter over that powerful jaw of his. When he had armed, he stood in thought for a little, with hand on jaw in his instinctive gesture, and wakened suddenly to find old Turlough bending the knee before him.

"Now I know of what blood you come, Yellow Brian," said the old man softly. "I saw Hugh O'Neill, the great earl, standing even as you stand now, on the morning when we slew the English at the Yellow Ford."

"Man, man!" exclaimed Brian in wonder; "that battle was fought fifty years ago, and yet you say that you were there?"

"I was the earl's horse-boy, master." And Brian saw tears on the old man's beard. "I loved him, and I was at the flight of the earls ten years after, going with Tyr-owen to Italy, and it was these hands laid him in his grave, master; master, have faith in me--"

Brian put down his hands to those of Turlough, his heart strangely softened.

"He was my grandfather," he said simply, and Turlough broke down and wept like a child.

When they left their horses and the camp behind, Brian followed Turlough, feeling like a new man. He had lightened his heart of a great load, and he wished that he had talked of these things with Turlough Wolf long before this. Now he understood why the old man had offered him service as he stood in that att.i.tude on the battlements of O'Reilly's castle after leaving Owen Ruadh, and he understood the love that Turlough bore him, and the silence the old man had kept on the matter, though it must have ever been deep in his heart to speak out.

No more words pa.s.sed between them, nor did Brian tell Turlough more of his story until long after; but of this there was no need. As they climbed higher on the mountain they could see the hundred hors.e.m.e.n filing off to the eastward; but soon these were lost sight of as Turlough led Brian and the fifty through the valleys and deep openings, which were drifted deep in snow, making progress slow and wearisome.

Indeed, Brian thought afterward that this hard traveling might have been responsible for what chanced on the other side of the mountain.

On the higher crests and ridges there was little snow, however, and Turlough seemed to know every inch of the place by heart, though more than once Brian gave himself up for lost in the maze of smaller peaks and the twisted paths they followed. Most of the fifty Turlough had chosen from those hillmen who had joined Brian by Lough Conn, so that they were not unused to such climbing, and remained with spirits unshaken by the vast loneliness that surrounded them, and to which other men might have succ.u.mbed somewhat.

Brian himself was no little awed by the desolate grandeur of the Stone Mountain, but he only wrapped his cloak more closely about him, and swore that the Dark Master should yield up the Spanish blade before many more hours.

And so indeed it was done, though not as Brian looked for.

Until long after noon the band wended their way with great toil and pain over the flanks of the mountain, until Turlough led Brian out to a point of black rock and motioned toward the valleys below them.

"There to the left," he said, "is the valley of the Black Tarn. Do you see that smoke, Brian, and that dark spot between the trees and the lake?"

Brian looked, squinting because of the snow-glare. Leading down from the side of the mountain itself was a valley--long, and widening gradually to the plain, where a dark wood swallowed it up. Almost under his feet, as it were, was a small, round lake deep in the rock, with a small, frozen-over outlet that was lost in the snow.

But farther down the valley-slopes there were trees, and among them horses tethered and a fire strewing smoke on the air close beside.

Between this little wood and the tarn itself there stood a low house of thatch with smoke also rising from it, and from the other fire among the trees came a sheen of steel caps and jacks, where were men.

But to Brian all these things were very small and hard to make out distinctly, as if he were looking at some carven mimicry, such as children are wont to use in play.

"Now come," said Turlough Wolf. "It is no easy task getting there without being discovered, and the way is long."

Brian found, indeed, that to avoid being seen from below they must needs take a roundabout way; but when the afternoon was far spent they had come to a snow-filled hollow among the rocks which Turlough declared was just over the edge of that valley-slope where stood the low house.

Turlough said that in his day that house had not stood there, and he knew nothing of it.

Since there could be no talk of lighting a fire, Brian's men huddled together in the hollow, and ate and drank cheerlessly. Brian was minded to meet the Dark Master and win his Spanish blade with his own hand, so he ordered that his men pa.s.s on after dark and make ready to fall upon those men who were camped at the wood, but to hold off until he and Turlough had smitten the Dark Master in that little thatched house, where he was most like to be found. Turlough yeasaid this plan, for he trusted greatly to Brian's strength.

At length they set out under the cold stars, and Brian's men were very weary, but promised to do all as he had commanded. He and Turlough set off alone over the hill, and when they had come to the hill-crest after much toiling through the snow they looked down and found the house a hundred yards below them.

"Let us go down cautiously," said Turlough, "for I think we can peer through the thatch and plan our stroke well."

So they struck down openly across the hill-slope, and found that there was none on guard. The door of the house was fast shut, but Turlough strode cautiously in the trampled snow around the house, where, at the side, a spark of firelight glittered through the loose thatch. To this he led Brian, and Brian stooped down and looked through the cranny, while Turlough went farther and fared as well.

There was but one room in the hut, and it was well lighted by the fire that glittered merrily on the hearth. Sitting not far away, but with his back to Brian, was a man; he sat on a stool, and there seemed to be a wide earthenware bowl of water or some dark liquid on the floor between his feet into which he was staring. In his bent-down position his rounded shoulders stood up stark against the fire, and Brian knew this was the Dark Master.

His hand went to the pistol in his belt, but since there was no other man in the hut, he thought it shame to murder O'Donnell as he sat, and made up his mind to go around to the door and burst in. He saw his own great sword slung across the Dark Master's back, but even as he stirred to rise, O'Donnell's voice came to him, low and vibrant, so that he bode where he was and listened.

"I cannot make out the figures," muttered the Dark Master, still staring down into the bowl of dark water. "The man has the face of Yellow Brian, yet he is swart; the woman I sure never saw before. _Corp na diaoul!_ What is the meaning of this? Who stands in my way?"

Brian paused in no little astonishment, and stole a glance aside to see old Turlough crossing himself fervently. It struck his mind that he had chanced on some sorcery here, and, remembering the tales he had heard of the Dark Master's work, he laughed a little and settled down. He was minded to see what this thing might be; but he made his pistol ready in case the magic told O'Donnell of his danger.

"It is some great man," came the Dark Master's voice again. "There is something broidered on his-- By my soul, it is the Red Hand of Tyr-owen!

It is The O'Neill himself--the earl-- Is Yellow Brian of his blood, then?"

At hearing this Brian crouched closer, in some fear and more wonder. Was the Dark Master in reality seeing such figures in that water-bowl? Then the man must be either mad or--or figures were there. Now O'Donnell's voice rose stronger: