Silver Brumby Kingdom (15 page)

The light from the new moon was not bright, but it showed up the silver horse, his mares and foals, as they climbed the cliff on to the High Plateau. Sometimes they looked like formless moonbeams, and then one by one they would turn across the cliff-face on to another shelf, and all take shape, cast in glittering silver. Only Yarolala was an invisible shadow except for her mane and tail. The pale, blue-roan, daughter of Whiteface, and Koora, too, blended with the moonlight, though they did not glow in the way the silver ones did.

Up and up they climbed, closer to the moonlight and starlight. Somewhere ahead, on the High Plateau, spending the night in a great treetop, were the eagles. . . . For now was the time.

Baringa and his herd reached the top of the cliff and walked on, weaving their way through the forest — fireflies or stardust, the silver horses moved in and out through the trees.

The wombats saw them, and the possums, bright-eyed in the trees watched them pass. Kangaroos saw them. Mopokes, stiff and still on their branches, watched and said nothing, for wisdom and grace, strength and courage passed below them. No brumbies knew that they were walking through the bush — not until they went down on to the gap between Dale’s Creek and Quambat, and turned through the trees towards the flat.

Lighting, with Goonda, had slept the night in the trees, near the queer, sunken hole at the edge of the flat. They were still asleep and were disturbed by a slight stir of birds, the startled call of a kurrawong, the sharp pipe of a treecreeper, and then, as though from over-flowing joy, the marvellous song of a thrush. It was not yet light. Why did the birds call? Why did the thrush sing? Lightning and Goonda became wide awake.

Something was coining through the bush like a dream. A silver horse who was said to be dead; a silver horse glowing with life, swinging along without fear of any other stallion — Baringa!

A deep sigh escaped Goonda, but Lightning simply stood and stared. Behind Baringa, following with a sort of solemn pride, was the most beautiful herd that had ever been seen in the mountains. First came Dawn,
Dawn
, and then Lighting did move, jump as though pricked by a thorn, for who was behind Dawn, was it that Hidden One? Then another white one came dancing nonchalantly along, and then Yarolala. It was when Yarolala passed that Lightning knew he was awake and not dreaming. Yarolala had told him she had seen Baringa die — and she, herself, had undoubtedly believed that he was dead. Yarolala had found her horse, living indeed.

Lightning still stood immobile.

At the first bright shaft of light and the sudden clear carolling of magpies in the sky, Baringa took his mares out of the trees on to Quambat Flat, and he took them towards Cloud, so that they might give ceremonious greeting to the only horse whom he recognised as the leader of Quambat. Baringa, walking proudly at the head of his herd, never even looked at the astonished black stallion, who was further down the flat.

The black stood and stared too. This was not Lightning — the almost beaten Lightning — who walked across the grass, owning the world, and yet bowed so ceremoniously to Cloud as though the world were Cloud’s! Was it indeed that bloodstained horse. And the mares! The
white
mares! His own, his very own white mare! He began to gallop. Who was the horse? His hooves thundered on the hollow ground. How many silver horses were there? This time he would
kill
. He, and he alone, the black stallion of the Limestone, would own the world — and those mares!

Cloud saw the black stallion coming, he saw Lightning and Goonda come out of the bush, he heard Baringa finish his gentle greeting, and saw him turn and walk towards the galloping black, walk fast enough to meet the black some distance from his herd.

A sudden shaft of sunlight came down through trees and mountains and lit up Baringa. The black stallion stopped and began to scream and paw the ground. A kurrawong cried wild glory. The eagles appeared in the sky, and Baringa walked on, closer and closer to the black.

The black stopped screaming, stopped pawing the ground, was still for an instant — all gathered together — and sprang

“He is no fool,” Cloud thought. “He wastes no energy on screaming when it really comes to the moment to fight.”

The black sprang, but he landed on empty air and came down to the ground on his four hooves with an unexpected crash. Baringa was at one side.

The black stallion swung round and came in more slowly, head snaking, nostrils fiery red, ears flat back — evil. Suddenly something struck him on that snaking head, and Baringa was out of reach again!

Once more the black came snaking forward, even more slowly, as he tried to watch Baringa’s movements — but Baringa moved faster than he could imagine. This time a slashing cut on the shoulder steadied the black, and Baringa was standing on his hindlegs in front of him, daring him to come on, daring him to challenge all the strength and power be had gained from his struggles with snow, fire, flood, ice.

This time Baringa let the snaking head almost touch his neck before he crashed both forefeet down. The black stallion was sure he would get his grip that time, and was not prepared to escape. He received three hard blows and gave none.

Next time he rushed at Baringa, Baringa just stood there, shining in the sunshine, then jumped away with a back-lashing kick which got the black on the knee. Sweat streamed in runnels on the black hide, and the smell of his own blood made the black’s anger less controllable. He came dashing at Baringa with forelegs striking, flailing, lashing. Baringa stood fast till the last minute, dodging legs, feeling the hot breath, and then suddenly jumped at the attacking horse. Baringa got one slash on the neck, but the black was rocked by the impact and at least one rock-hard blow. Blood began to run into his eye.

The black realised, then, that his wild rushing did no good. He would have to control himself. Fear steadied him down and cooled his anger. Instead of furiously fighting the horse that had his white mare — and the other beautiful mares — he knew he would have to fight a more cunning battle if he were to save himself. Perhaps he could stand back and make the silver horse do the attacking.

He stood still and waited.

Baringa stood too, and while they stood, the eagles floated overhead.

Presently Baringa began to move off towards the black’s roan mares. The black went too, but did not attack — not until Baringa started rounding up his mares.

When, at last, a black fury caine flying at him through the air, Baringa was ready, and vanished from underneath his feet. Before the black had recovered balance, Baringa was driving his mares off at quite a smart pace.

Then the black seemed to go mad. He galloped after them and hurled himself at Baringa, but there was no possibility of that heavy horse landing on the quick-silver Baringa. Baringa moved just enough to be missed — and, with a tremendously powerful strike which landed on the side of the black’s head, knocked him over. Then he started to drive the mares again. The black stallion picked himself up arid came galloping alongside Baringa. He made a tremendous spring, sideways, at the silver horse, but it was as though Baringa felt the movement in the air and knew exactly what the other was going to do, because he jumped sideways, lightly and swiftly, snaked his own head forward, and fastened his teeth into the crested black neck.

For a moment Baringa shook him, all his four feet planted firmly, muscles knotting on his great cream neck, chest, shoulders, quarters, then he flung him down, and through this enormous effort, he did not hear the commotion in the watching horses, did not see his grandsire join them like a silver whirlwind.

The black horse regained his balance. Baringa started harrying him, chasing him. They had not gone far when the black sprang on to a rock and defied Baringa. Baringa switched round and mustered up the roan mares again and starred to drive them fast towards the lower end of the flat. As soon as they were galloping madly, Baringa stopped and stood still.

The eagles were dropping lower and lower. It was as though they knew that the moment was coming.

Then Baringa attacked.

He rose on his hindlegs and advanced towards the black stallion. He darted first to one side, then to the other: he nipped; he struck; he sprang forward; he sprang back. He went round and round the black, kicking, striking. He sprang up and down in front of him, snaking his head and advancing, feinting to one side and then attacking from the other.

The black was dripping sweat and blood and never touched his opponent. Baringa drove him, yard by yard, down the flat — this horse who had nearly defeated Lightning and whom Lightning could not defeat — slowly exhausting him, because no other horse could keep up with those swift movements.

The roan mares were close, and all the other mares and horses followed some distance behind.

As they were nearing where the trees and the ridges closed in to make the end of the flat, Baringa gave one quick leap forward, grabbed the horse by the wither and hung on. Then he began to shake him, slowly at first, as though he were waiting for something.

Cloud and Thowra and the mares, Lightning and his mares, and the others of Quambat Flat came closer, closer. Overhead the eagles hung in the sky.

Then Baringa braced himself to shake all the strength from the black stallion — shaking, shaking the great black horse.

Before he was badly hurt, Baringa cast him away. The exhausted horse half fell, then struggled up.

“Will you go?” said Baringa, “or must I beat you still further? Do you wish to die?”

The black horse could see his white mare and Dawn and Moon, not far away. He made a great effort to stop his limbs trembling, and launched himself at Baringa, for surely he, the great black stallion of the Limestone, was unbeatable. But Baringa was no longer there. It was only air on which his teeth closed, and something hit him hard on the head again. He turned back dizzily.

He was knocked spinning through space.

It was difficult for him to get up. The ground was rocking.

All the watching horses could see that he was beaten. It looked for a few moments as if he would not be able to raise his head from the ground. Then he forced himself up.

“That is enough,” said Baringa sharply, and swung round to look for the roan mares.

The black made one more wild effort to stop him, but Baringa simply bounded forward with a lethal kick of his heels that knocked the black staggering. Then he cantered round those once stolen roans, cut out the two whom Lightning had originally wanted, and sent the rest flying down the track that would take them back to the Limestone.

“Those mares were never won from you by Lightning in fair fight,” he said to the shaking, trembling, sweating black, “but if they wish to return, I would not stop them. Now go And you die, if you ever come back!” Baringa drove the black horse down the creek after his mares.

Just then a great shadow passed over the sunlit grass: it was the eagles flying low. Baringa rose in salute to them. This was the moment which they had all known was coming, the moment even the mares in the Secret Valley had felt to be close in the future, and which had been felt, too, by Baringa’s own herd — part of the deep excitement as they waited there in the Canyon for the silver horse descending the cliff.

When he turned round and started to canter back, he saw the grey mares, once owned by Steel, huddled nervously together with the two roans whom he had cut out from the black’s five. He checked his pace.

“Don’t be afraid,” he said to the greys. “Lightning won you from Steel, and I would not take you from my own dam’s brother. Go on up the flat, and you too,” he said to the roans.

It was then that he saw Thowra. He wanted to greet him, and he wanted to go quickly up Dawn and to all his mares, for the freedom of Quambat Flat and of the southern mountains was now theirs, but first he had to give these mares to Lightning.

He brought the greys and roans right up in front of Lightning and stopped them.

“They are yours,” he said to Lightning, and then rubbed his nose on Goonda’s and added: “You are all safe here.”

He cantered back to his white mares, to his chestnut and his pale blue roan. Dawn came forward to meet him, her foal at her heels.

He greeted his herd and led them up the flat to Cloud. Cloud, while he lived, would always graze at the top of Quambat Flat. Now the old horse rose in salute to the young one who had made this southern land his kingdom, and Baringa rose, too, in graceful greeting, and to his grandsire, who had brought him to Quambat Flat when he was a yearling.

Lightning stood not far away. He had seen all that had taken place, seen Baringa thrash the horse whom he had not been able to beat. Lightning would know for always, now, that Baringa’s mares must never be molested, for Baringa — who had saved him once from Steel, saved him when he was blinded by the fire, and rescued him and his mares when they were hopelessly yarded in the heavy snow — Baringa was an unbeatable fighter, the Silver Stallion of Quambat Flat.

As Baringa and his herd slept that night in moonbar and shade beneath a candlebark, a soft grey shadow hopped through the bush and came quietly beside him, touched his nose with his moon-silvered paw.