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Updated: June 9, 2025
Upon this the O'Malley rovers were impatient to revictual at Gorumna and be off to the south after plunder, so Nuala decided to leave Bertragh the next morning. That night, after Cathbarr had drunk himself asleep and the O'Malleys had sought their ships, the Bird Daughter unexpectedly became very cordial toward Brian once more, and they sat up late before the fireplace.
However, Turlough proceeded to set forth the reasons for such a message, as he had conceived them within his shrewd mind. First, it seemed that the pestilence had visited Gorumna in the absence of its mistress, and that the Dark Master had caught a score of the O'Malleys who had been wrecked in Bertraghboy Bay, promptly hanging them all.
This score, and two more who came in later, were all the men left to Brian; they reported that the Dark Master would be on them by daybreak, with two hundred Scots troopers and one horse cannon. "His friends proved niggardly, then," laughed Brian drearily. "We have but to hold the place till to-morrow night, friends, and the O'Malleys will relieve us.
They have their own police pass for the war-zone, but all special plums are for the Becketts, shared by the O'Malleys; and this visit to the trenches was an extra-special superplum. All along the way, coming and going, tearing to meet us, or leaving us behind, splashed with gray mud after a night of rain, motor-lorries sped.
"The man is called Cathbarr of the Ax, and he is a hard man to fight, for he has ten men like himself, axmen all. The woman cannot fight, but she has a swift mind, many men, and her name is Nuala O'Malley, of the O'Malleys of Erris." "I had sooner fight a man than a woman," returned Brian slowly. "Also, this Cathbarr of the Ax has fewer men. I will do you this favor, O'Donnell Dubh."
With the hundred men under Cathbarr, we have close to three hundred. You can take them all, for my kinsmen here have enough and to spare to handle my two ships as well as theirs." "Good!" exclaimed Brian, as the two O'Malleys nodded.
For around the tower and at the base at the neck of land were camped a goodly force of men, while at anchor near the tower lay not Nuala's two ships alone, but also those other two of her kinsmen! "Those two O'Malleys have returned from the south," exclaimed Turlough in wild delight. "That means more men and ships, master we will cut off those Millhaven pirates to a man!"
During the afternoon, when the two O'Malleys were busily getting their ships in order for the coming fray, Brian sat in the tower with Nuala. He told her freely of himself, and although neither of them referred to that reward of which he had spoken at their meeting, Brian knew well that he would claim it.
"And who else did you see, Mickey?" "Oh hosts of the quality. First there was Fin MacCual, and Brian Boro, and old King Cormac and the O'Tooles with their crowns on, and the O'Neills, and the O'Connors, and the O'Meaghers, and the O'Malleys, and the O'Doghertys, and the O'Briens, and no end of O'Donoghues, and the Dermods, and Desmonds, and my ancestor, the great MacCarty-Mor himself."
Brian had lost in all fifty men in that battle, while the Dark Master had given Cathbarr a goodly thrust through the shoulder, which had let out most of the giant's vanity and promised to give the huge ax some time to rest and rust. So, then, Brian found himself heading two hundred and fifty men of his own, with Nuala's hundred O'Malleys, when they rode down again to Bertragh Castle.
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