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Updated: June 2, 2025
Brian chuckled, but he was too weary with that day's work to talk or think, and when the remnants of their meal had been removed and their door shut, he gratefully sought the first bed he had known for weeks. After some laughing persuasion he prevailed on the suspicious Cathbarr to blow out the candles, and upon that he fell asleep.
Down it flashed, the thinner blade sheared through the chain an inch from Brian's ankle and split the oak beneath, and Cathbarr drew back for a second blow. Four times he struck, and the blows smote off the chains from each wrist and ankle, although the locked rings still remained.
Author of "Malay Gold," "The Ghost Hill," "John Solomon, Supercargo," etc. This story began in the All-Story Weekly for December 30. "I dare not trust birds alone in this strait, Cathbarr. Go to that galley with the two O'Malleys and hasten to Gorumna. Bid the Bird Daughter stay and wait further word from me; but take those hundred men of mine with her galleys, and hasten back.
As he had resolved on his course during that return ride the night before, he gathered his men together and briefly ordered them to be ready to ride at noon, and to Cathbarr alone he outlined his plan. Then he picked two of the axmen who knew the country roundabout, and ten from among those O'Donnell had loaned him, and took them aside and told them of Turlough Wolf, who would come before long.
But enough. Ready?" Brian nodded slightly, and the long ax flashed up. Now, Brian O'Neill had served a stiff apprenticeship at weapons, and had faced many men whose eyes boded him death, but here, for the first time in all his life, he felt the self-confidence stricken out of him. As Cathbarr heaved up his ax, he became a different man.
He touched Cathbarr and they returned. "A party of Ormond's Scottish troopers," he said quietly when they had rejoined the men. "Cathbarr, take thirty men and work around them. When you strike, I will lead over the hill and flank them." The giant nodded, picked his men, and rode away.
"I think that it were best for me to slay you here, Brian of the hard eyes, to slay you and this Cathbarr of the Ax. It seems to my mind that it is anything but good to turn you loose upon the land, for I hear a storm of hoofs in the air, and dead men are riding on the wind, and there is a whisper " He paused, drew his cloak about him, and gazed down at his foot.
For some months Cathbarr had maintained himself here, raiding O'Donnell's lands chiefly and making his ax feared through all the coast. In fact, the giant had attempted his own errand to set himself up in power; but he had gone about it like a child. The Dark Master had come against him with a hundred men, and after losing a score and more at the causeway, had tried to starve him out.
For in that day Galway was a second Venice, and its commerce made rich plundering for the O'Malley's both of Gorumna and of Erris in the North, though the war had somewhat dimmed the glory of the fourteen great merchant families. Brian wondered often what had become of Cathbarr and his two hundred men, and Murrough could give him little satisfaction.
At that the crowd fell silent, but their leader gave a rapid order, and half a dozen men ran down to the strand. Another order, and the maddened villagers gave back as the seamen closed about Brian and Cathbarr and their captives. "Come," said the leader roughly. "You shall go to Gorumna Isle with us, strange men, but I do not think that you shall ever come back again."
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