Murrogh shook the blood and darkness from his eyes. “Dunlang!” he cried in a fearful voice, falling to his knees at the side of his friend and raising his head; but Dunlang’s eyes were already glazing.
“Murrogh! Eevin!” he whispered, then blood gushed from his lips and he went limp in the prince’s arms. Murrogh leaped up with a scream like a madman. Roaring he rushed into the thick of the Vikings and his men swept in like a storm behind him. Slashing right and left he mowed down the ranks, and on the hill of Cabra, Malachi cried out suddenly, flinging doubts and plots to the wind. As Broder had plotted, so had he. He had but to stand aside until both hosts were cut to pieces, then he could seize Ireland, tricking the Danes as they had planned to betray him. But the blood in his veins cried out against him and would not be stilled. He gripped the collar about his neck – the golden collar of Tomar, that he had taken so many years before from the Danish king his sword had broken, and the old fire leaped up anew.
“Charge and die!” he roared, drawing his sword, and at his back the men of Meath yelled like a hunting pack and swarmed down into the field.
Under the shock of those fresh new hordes the weakened Danes staggered and broke, and tore away singly and in slashing desperate clumps, seeking to gain the bay where their ships were anchored. But the Meathmen had cut off their retreat. And the ships lay far out, for the tide was at flood. All day that terrific battle had raged, yet to Conn, snatching, between mighty blows, a startled glance at the sinking sun, it seemed that scarce an hour had passed since the lines crashed.
The fleeing Northmen made for the river and the Gaels plunged in after them to drag them down. Among the fugitives and the clumps of Norsemen who here and there made determined stands, the Irish chiefs were divided. The boy Turlogh was separated from Murrogh’s side and no man saw him again until they dragged his drowned body from the fishing weir of the Tolka, his fingers tangled in a Dane’s shaggy hair.
The clans of Leinster, first to flinch in the early battle, now were the last to break. Their king had worked them into the semblance of a formation, and they were fighting like fiends, when Black Turlogh rushed like a blood-mad tiger into the thick of them and struck Mailmora dead in the midst of his warriors. And the Gaels of Leinster broke under the charge of their maddened kinsmen.
The flight became general and Murrogh, still blood-mad but staggering from fatigue and loss of blood, came upon a band of Vikings who, back to back, resisted the conquerors. Their leader was Anrad the berserk and when he saw Murrogh he rushed upon him furiously. Murrogh, too weary to parry the Dane’s stroke, dropped his own sword and closed with Anrad, hurling him to the ground. The sword was wrenched from the Dane’s hand as they fell and both snatched at it, but Murrogh caught the hilt and Anrad the blade. The Gaelic prince tore it away, dragging the keen edge through the Viking’s hand, severing nerve and thew, and setting a knee on Anrad’s chest, Murrogh drove the sword thrice through his body. And Anrad, dying, drew a dagger with his left hand and plunged it under Murrogh’s heart. So from the dead man, Murrogh fell back dying.
The Danes were all flying now, and in the river that seethed and foamed crimson, the work of slaughter went on. There Dane and Gael, close-locked, tore out each other’s throats and entrails, and sank unheeding. On the high wall King Sitric stared stunned and bewildered, watching his high ambitions crumble and fade away – and Kormlada gazed wild-eyed into ruin, defeat, shame.
Conn ran among the dying and the fugitives, seeking Thorwald Raven. The kern’s buckler was gone, shattered among the axes. His broad breast was gashed in half a dozen places; a sword-edge had bitten into his scalp when only his shock of tangled hair had saved his brain. A spear had girded deep into his thigh. Yet now in the heat and fury he scarce felt these wounds.
Suddenly he stumbled over a prostrate form where dead men in wolf-skins lay thick among a heap of mailed corpses. A weakening hand caught at his knee and Conn bent down to the chief of Hy Many – O’Kelly, nephew of Malachi. The chief’s eyes were glazed and he murmured in delirium.
“Tell my uncle, King Malachi, that not for all the gold he has offered me, will I betray King Brian – yet I will keep his secret – ”
Conn lifted his head and sanity came back into the dying eyes and a smile curled the blue lips.
“I hear the war-cry of the O’Neill!” he whispered. “Malachi could not be a traitor! He could not stand from the fray, despite his ambitions! The Red – Hand – the Red Hand – to – Victory! – ”
And so died O’Kelly, prince of Connacht, as blameless a knight as ever walked the red ways of battle.
Conn rose suddenly, his eyes blazing, as a familiar figure met his gaze. Thorwald Raven had broken from the press and now he fled alone and swiftly, not toward the sea or the river, where his comrades were dying like flies beneath the axes of the avengers, but toward Tomar’s Wood. And on the swift feet of hate, Conn followed.
Thorwald saw his fate and turned snarling; so the thrall met his former master and red was the tryst. As Conn rushed into close quarters, the Norseman gripped his spear shaft with both hands and lunged fiercely, but the point glanced from the great copper collar about the kern’s neck. And Conn lunged upward with all his tigerish power, so that the great blade ripped through Jarl Thorwald’s tattered mail and spilled his entrails on the sand.
Conn turned about and realized that the chase had brought him almost to the tent of the king, pitched behind the battle-lines. He saw King Brian standing in front of the tent, his white elf-locks flowing in the wind, and but one man attending him. Swearing, Conn ran forward.
“Kern,” said the king, “what are the tidings?”
“The foreigners flee, as thou seest,” said Conn. “But Murrogh has fallen.”
“Evil are those tidings,” said Brian, his age falling suddenly on him like a cold cloud. “Erin shall never again look on a champion like him.”
“But where are your guards, my lord?” exclaimed Conn.
“They have joined in the pursuit,” Brian answered and Conn said: “Come, my lord, let me take you to a safer spot; the Gall are flying all about us here.”
King Brian shook his head like a man whose doom is upon him.
“Nay, I know I leave not this place alive, for Eevin of Craglea told me last night that I should fall this day. And what avails me to survive Murrogh and the champions of the Gael? Let me lie at Armagh, in the peace of God.”
And now the attendant cried out: “My king, we are undone! Men blue and naked are upon us!”
“The armored Danes!” snarled Conn, wheeling about as King Brian drew his heavy sword. And they saw a group of blood-stained Vikings approaching the tent. Before them strode Broder and Prince Amlaff, their vaunted mail hanging in shreds, their swords notched and dripping. It was not chance that brought Broder to the king’s tent. He had marked its location and now he came through the ruins of the flying fight, his soul a raging Hell of shame and fury in which the forms of Brian, Sigurd and Kormlada spun in a devil’s dance. He had lost the battle, lost Ireland, lost Kormlada; now he was ready to give up his life in a last dying effort of vengeance.
And Broder yelled like a wolf and rushed upon the king, with Prince Amlaff, and Conn sprang to bar their way like a fierce grizzly at bay. But Broder swerved aside and avoided the kern, leaving him to Amlaff, as he rushed on the king. And Conn took Amlaff’s blade in his arm and smote a single terrible blow that rent the prince’s hauberk like paper, severed the shoulder bone and shattered the spine, then he sprang back to guard King Brian.