"It is ill to sunder a force of men, master," quoth Turlough. "If those horsemen 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 horsemen 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."