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As for the man he was to slay, the only part of it which troubled Brian was the prediction of the Black Woman at the Dee water. She had known him, and had prophesied O'Neill's death, and had spoken of the west and this Cathbarr of the Ax. After all, however, she might have shot a chance shaft which had gone true. Brian had no faith in magic.
The axmen had gathered most of their loot and buried what was of value, for Brian had determined to return here from Bertragh and make use of the tower until he had heard from Turlough's errand. So now, at the head of thirty men, he rode across the narrow causeway with Cathbarr of the Ax at his side for friend and guide.
As barely a dozen could crowd into the place, the rest were forced to camp outside in the snow, but roaring fires and some little food put them in good humor and it was no hardship to any of them. "It has been a strange two days for us twain," said Brian as he and Cathbarr divided a scorched bannock one of the Scots had hastily turned out over the coals.
"Good!" cried Brian joyfully. "Cathbarr, have a hundred and fifty men saddled at dawn what is this?" Turlough's messenger handed him a paper. It was a safe-conduct issued by the Confederacy and Royalist leaders in the name of one Stephen Burke, and where the wily Wolf had gotten it the messenger did not know.
His men were like himself in this respect, and after they had fraternized with Brian's men they began to feel the same unbounded surety in Yellow Brian as Cathbarr expressed. Their axes were the usual splay-bladed affairs that their grandfathers had used under Red Hugh at the Yellow Ford, nor indeed in all his life had Brian ever seen another ax like to that of Cathbarr's.
In the lessening obscurity it was hard to tell friend from foe, since the mist was swirling in off the water and holding down the powder-smoke. Brian saved his pistols, and, with Cathbarr at his side, struck into the wild, shaggy-haired northern men; they were armed with ax and sword and skean, and Brian soon found himself hard beset despite the pikemen behind.
"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.
The mass of men gained the moat before a challenge rang out from above, and with that Brian leaped forward at the gates. A musket roared out, and another, but Brian and Cathbarr were in the courtyard before the Scots awakened. A startled group barred their way to the hall, then Brian thrust once, the huge ax crashed down, and they were through.
Also, he had always thought of fate as coming to him suddenly and swiftly in battle or foray; and to be deliberately done to death in cold blood by hanging or otherwise was not as he would have wished. "At least," he thought without any great comfort, "Cathbarr and Turlough will avenge me on the Dark Master though I had liefer be living when that was done!"
When he wakened it was broad daylight, and Cathbarr was still snoring with his ax looped about his wrist as usual. Brian, feeling like a new man, went to the open casement and looked out. He found himself gazing through a three-foot stone wall, and as he was doubtless in one of the towers, this argued that the lower walls were twelve feet thick or more.
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