Read Online Silver Brumby Kingdom by Elyne Mitchell - Free Book Online Page A

stallions were back on the flat rock now, locked together. They freed themselves, they were dodging each other’s blows, they were leaping from rock to rock again. The blue light shimmered over them. Baringa seemed to be disembodied light itself, taking shape and then vanishing, becoming solid as he jumped or struck, then melting into the moving blue again. They were both so nimble that neither succeeded in sinking his teeth into the other, or in striking more than glancing blows as the other dodged.
    Baringa stood quite still for a few seconds and merged so with the atmosphere and the rocks that “the killer”, if it were really he, made a mistake, and came in too much to one side. Then Baringa, momentarily possessing the form of a horse in the blueness, gave him a tremendous blow on the head.
    Yarolala watched Baringa streak forward to follow up his advantage with yet another crashing blow, but the other horse seemed less shaken by the hit on the head than one could have expected, and, as Baringa came through the blue air, be dodged out of the way and then back to attack.
    There they were, dodging, leaping, rearing — a whirl of horse, and nothing taking substantial form in that moment before it was light. Then light came sliding over the sky, and there were two distinct horses fighting a strange fight that rarely brought them close enough to touch each other. Baringa’s enemy was a chestnut. The roans had said the killer horse was chestnut, tall, rangy. This must be he, Yarolala thought. Bolder, they called him. He was a horse that wandered far and wide, they had said. Yarolala was trembling. Yes, this must be Bolder, and he did indeed look like a killer.
    Baringa seemed lighter, she thought. He might be swifter too, but in nimbleness they were completely even.
    Just then Baringa must have decided that these rocks, in which Bolder obviously knew every foothold, every crack, were no place to fight, because he took a wild leap through the gold-glittering air and landed on a little grassy flat below the rocks. Rocks and trees enclosed this flat, but on the grass Bolder would have no advantage. There Baringa waited for his attacker, his brave, yet gentle head thrown up, his silver mane glistening.
    Bolder sprang after him, and they danced round and round each other in the snowgrass ring. While they fought on and on, neither doing much damage to the other, Yarolala moved down through the trees so that she could see them better.
    “They will fight till they, are exhausted and then fight again,” she thought, but what would happen in the end? A horse was never given a name for being a killer for nothing. She wondered if Baringa were anxious, then she saw that he was enjoying the soft snowgrass underfoot: She watched him do several light springs.
    Bolder came dancing in to strike him. Baringa stood his ground, then dodged at the last minute, got in a good kick at the chestnut’s shoulder, and was out of reach again. in a flash. Then Yarolala knew that Baringa had determined to attack, but that even the nimble chestnut could not guess how, or where.
    Baringa darted here, there, everywhere. He circled fast around the other horse. Then he was coming in on the chestnut’s forequarter, but like a snake, from side to side, and fast, so fast. His teeth had grabbed. They missed the hold for which he had aimed — on the wither — but they sank into Bolder’s neck. For a few minutes the two horses were locked together, dancing and swaying in the sunlight. Yarolala saw Bolder getting himself ready for a mighty heave — Baringa must have felt it. Before he could be thrown off Baringa let go his grip, twisted on his haunches, and struck again at Bolder’s head.
    Once more they were dancing around and around each other. Baringa looked as though he were enjoying himself and also as though he could go on for hours.
    They did go on and on. Yarolala crept off to get a drink in the middle of the morning. When she came back, the little,