Steady As The Beating Drum (Open)

[aquiladorado]

The pace was set. As if a metronome played inside his head, the roan stallion cantered evenly across the lands of the High Country. It seemed only days ago that he had been under the careful watch of his herd, and more recently the small group of bachelor stallions that he had traveled with. But now he had left them – ventured off on his own into the lands that his ancestors had endlessly traveled, only to do the same. How the feeling excited him! Baralga tossed his head and sent his call of liberty across the open spaces around him, kicking out a hind leg in the process. The stallion jumped down a small bank and ducked into the cover of the forest. Heading generally to the South down a slight incline, he was met with the warm breeze of sweet spring grass that promised him good grazing up ahead.

Slowing to a walk, Baralga approached the edge of the forest with caution. Despite his anxiety, he took into consideration the lessons he had been taught in his younger years and made sure the coast was clear before emerging into the bare plain. He stepped out with a forward stride, and dodging large rocks or any other object that was in his way, Baralga finally picked a suitable spot to rest. The roan lowered his head to graze. The weather was good, but the grazing was still slightly damp from its last storm. The stallion was not bothered in the least and he satisfied his demanding stomach before deciding to lower his bulk to the ground and take care of an itch he had not quite been able to reach by himself.

Baralga thrashed awkwardly in the grass as he took care of his itch. Considering the grass was not as stiff as it could have been at a later time of year, it was not quite up to his standards but worked well enough to rid his skin of its irritation. The roan managed a deep sigh and took a couple bites more of the grass while he was closer to it before rising to his feet again. He was enjoying this kind of life very much. The thought of his brother, not by blood but of a long-term companionship that had been established when he was just a colt, ran through his mind; Baralga looked around as if he expected to see the other Brumby, but of course he was not there. The stallion blew softly through his nostrils as he quietly basked in the warmth of the sun’s glow. He vowed to go back for his brother one day, so that the two of them could be together once more until they started herds of their own. Until then, he was perfectly content.

[stormsnow]

The blood bay mare picked her way through the forest, seeking a spot to graze and fill her belly. The main part of her coat was a shining, well-polished red. Her mane, tail, nose and the bottom part of her legs were black. She was tall and well built, and on first glance, she could be mistaken for a stallion. She was five years old.

Kurra was coming to the edge of the forest when she caught sight of a strangely patterned roan stallion, grazing. He would be able to smell her by now; let him. She trotted boldy out of the forest and picked a grazing spot a little way from the stallion.

She ate the grass hungrily, having only had a full belly before midwinter. She did her best to pace herself, chewing slowly on a large cud. Her ears were still finely tuned to any sound or movement. She didn't know what this stallion was like, and she wasn't going to take any chances.

[Corowa]

Karuah picked her way carefully up the rough snowgrass slope. Her legs ached from the steep climb, and she could feel the sweat break out behind her ears. The young mare stopped to catch her breath on a high ledge of rock, the steep south-east spur of the Brindle Bull.

There, far below, the slope dropped sharply down to the Boggy plain.
A sudden neigh went ringing out over the wide stretch of mountain. Karuah felt her hide prickle and she listened tensely. She went more slowly now, upwards over the great slabs of granite and rough tors. A band of snowgums ran down the line of ridge, and the creamy mare trembled at the sight of those gnarled, old snowgums, bleached silver by wind and snow.

The mare walked towards the snowgums, intensely aware of how clearly she stood out against the timbered, western peak of the Brindle Bull. Karuah moved soundlessly, careful to stick to the snowgrass and rock where her tracks would not show. Her nostrils quivered and she was sure she had seen some sign of movement in the snowgums ahead.

Just then, she glimpsed the outline of brown hide between the great, rough trunks. The snowgums thinned, and Karuah started down a long slope of snowgrass. She was too nervous to graze, and it took immense courage for her to go forwards when she shook all over with this queer blending of excitement and fear. It was beneath the sheltering branches of the last of the snowgums that the mare finally saw what it was she had been so desperately searching for.

At the sight of the two grazing brumbies, she propped to a standstill, every part of her questioning. For a moment, Karuah stood, irresolute. Then, driven by a profound sense of longing, the mare stepped from the cover of the trees. She gave a soft nicker, never more aware of herself than in this one moment, a glistening silver mare filled with all the joy of living.

[aquiladorado]

The bay roan was only aware of the presence of another when the scent wafted past his nostrils. Turning his large head to look behind him, Baralga saw a fiery Bay mare emerge from the line of trees where he had been not long before. He took an interest in the mare, eying her curiously as she trotted past him without acknowledgment and started to graze. The stallion snorted and took a couple steps toward her before lowering his head once again to tear at the snowgrass. He was facing the mare now, and kept his inquisitive gaze focused on her as he minded his own business. Mares were mysterious creatures, and his experience in interacting with them was very low. He was very social, but understood boundaries and would not bother the Bay unless she wanted to be bothered.

Moments after the Bay mare had made her entrance, Baralga was greeted with a nicker. He raised his frame to its full height – strands of grass hanging from his mouth, ears and eyes alert, long black tail streaming out behind him – to discover the source of the sound. He would have assumed it as the mare who stood not far from him, but this quiet noise had come from the opposite side. What the roan stallion found was quite surprising. Another mare, for Baralga could tell it was a mare from the way she moved, was making her way across the slope toward him. Her coat was beautiful and a light Palomino in color – she was a Silver Brumby. Baralga had heard tales of the silvers, and his herd had seen the odd one from time to time, but never up close. He answered this new mare with a throaty nicker of his own and floated toward her with his rhythmic trot. This silver had intrigued him, and he pondered what it would be like to talk to one?

”Good day, silver one. I am Baralga – a friend by my name, and will cause you no harm,”[/i] he added to assure the mare. ”Would you be so kind as to share with me your name?”[/i] The stallion politely extended his nose to the mare and softly inhaled her scent. Silvers even smelled different! Or so he thought. Baralga turned to look back to the Bay mare, and called out a welcome for her to join in the meeting if she was interested.

[stormsnow]

Kurra sensed the stallion's curiosity, but paid him no mind. She would talk to him when she was settled, and not before. In fact, she was just about to lift her head and say something when another mare appeared. A silver one. The blood bay mare believed that silvers should be treated no different than other horses; it was merely their colouring that set them so far apart from others.

She flicked her ears as she heard the stallion speak to the mare, and intoroduced himself. She almost snorted in surprise as he called out for her to join them, if she wished. She had always thought that once a stallion had a silver mare in his sight, he would pay no heed to another, more ordinary mare. Evidently, this stallion, Baralga, was not like that.

She lifted her head and trotted over to the pair. Gazing at both for a moment, she spoke. "Greetings to both of you. I am Kurra, named for the storm in which I was born. May I also inquire of yours?" She swung her head around to face the other mare, so that there was no uncertainty as to whom the question was directed.

[Corowa]

The stallion stilled, every proud line of him outlined by the surrounding bush. Then, with a soft neigh, he trotted forwards. He seemed to float over the snowgrass, and the mare pricked her ears and looked on with interest. Karuah could feel herself tremble with a sudden, wild excitement, and the blood thrummed, restless in her veins.

The mare, standing quite still, felt every hair stand on end and she stirred fitfully. It seemed the wind carried some message, an unspoken promise, half-forgotten or perhaps only half-remembered. The silence of the bush seemed suddenly menacing, made every part of her tingle with a strong feeling of dread.

Karuah’s trembling quietened only when the stallion touched her nose to his. He showed signs of becoming a fine stallion, nearly at his prime, but strong and full of the joy of life. For a moment, Karuah was torn by her devotion for Warring, and her longing for that which perhaps she might never understand.

There was a sound nearby. Karuah, so shaken by longing and that strange feeling of longing, had been unaware of anyone other than Baralga. She swung around to see it was the bay mare that had come nearer, compelled by the stallion’s gentle call and perhaps by her own intense curiosity.

“I am Karuah, daughter of Corowa,” the mare said shyly to the two brumbies, and at that moment, the wind sighed in the leaves of the snowgums, and it seemed to tell of old legends, of a swift and cunning whirlwind, whom not even man in all his strength and wisdom, had ever truly tamed.

Unmindful of the meaning of such tales, Karuah extended her nose to the bay mare and blew gently through her nostrils in greeting. “I glimpsed you between the snowgums and thought it was my stallion I followed,” she told her. “He vanished in the wind-driven snow and I have searched many miles of the High Country, but even the mopoke cannot tell me whither he has gone.”

[aquiladorado]

Baralga did not have to continue to watch the Bay to know she was approaching. Her footfalls, even on the soft snowgrass, were caught by his attentive ears and his heart began to race. It was true that he had left his bachelor herd to go off on his own, but the fact that these other Brumbies had joined him on the grassy slope did not faze him in the least. The roan enjoyed their company.

When the Bay mare arrived, Baralga whickered a greeting and touched his nose to the top of her neck. Her name suited her bright color – it was a much more exciting name than his own. When the Silver began to speak, he retracted his nose and turned to face her while he listened intently to what she spoke of. The irony between their similar names was humorous to the roan, although he figured he might have some trouble distinguishing them. But as for the other name Karuah shared, Baralga found no familiarity in it.

”That is sad news indeed,”[/i] he commented sincerely. ”I apologize, but my wanderings of these lands have been short and I am not likely to know which stallion you speak of. Otherwise I would have offered my assistance or shared any knowledge I had, but I fear I can’t think of anything I could do for you.”[/i] Baralga was truly troubled by his lack of use to this mare, and racked his memories further for any sightings of a stallion set astray. He glanced to Kurra and examined her in concentration. He expected the Silver’s stallion to share her Bay color based on what she had said, but still nothing came to mind.

[stormsnow]

Kurra almost snorted in surprise as Baralga touched his nose to her neck. Does this mean that he wants me in his herd? She wondered silently. Then the silver mare began to speak, and the fiery blood bay mare turned to listen.

The mare introduced herself as Karuah, and Kurra could have sworn that Thowra himself was playing tricks. Then Karuah said that she was the daughter of Corowa. The name was unfamiliar, but then, a half-brumby mare would know little about wild brumbies and their herds.

She reminded herslef that it was her spirit, not her breeding, that made her a wild brumby, She turned as the silver mare began to speak once more, and felt as the other gently blew through her nostrils in greeting.

The blood bay mare returned the greeting, and apologized. "I am sorry for having decieved you, even if it was unintetional. Many have said that I look like as stallion at first glance, and I take it as neither a compliment nor and insult. I would tell you the whereabouts of this stallion if I knew, but I am sorry to say that I have not."

Her words remotely echoed Baralga's, and she tried to think of whether she had seen such a stallion. If she had, the image would have been there, in her mind. But she was ashamed to confirm to herself that it was not.

[Corowa]

“I think perhaps only the wind itself knows where my mate has gone,” Karuah said to Baralga, and she turned to look over the wide stretches of mountains, south to the deep gullies and timbered ridges of the mighty Crackenback. Something pulled at the mare, but it seemed she was no nearer to that which she searched for.

She had travelled many miles of rough, mountain country, far south towards Quambat Flat, to where the strong and gentle Son of Storm once had run, and then north to the Grey Mare Bogong, to some of the highest mountain plains, where stockmen drove many mobs of brumbies up towards Tumut.

A plover called out, and it seemed to speak of sorrow and loss. It seemed the very bush was silent, and not even the wind stirred in the leaves of the snowgums. It was difficult to stand still. Her hide prickled with the feeling of being watched, but there was no sign of movement in the surrounding snowgums, and surely if it were a stockman, she would hear the sound of his shod horse.

Karuah stood, listening and watching. Nothing happened, but still the terrible tension remained, every part of her tingling with this feeling of uneasiness. The mare felt a sigh of longing run through her, found herself suddenly, intensely aware of this other stallion, Baralga of the Brindle Bull.

He was an exceptionally big and heavy horse, a stallion in his prime, powerful-looking and strong. The mare knew Warring might never return to her, but here was a stallion worthy of being her mate. She would not stop looking until she found Warring, but she could not stand to be alone any longer.

It would be exciting to run with him surely, and the mare walked forwards till she was quite close to the stallion. His nose had been so thrilling to touch, and Karuah stood with head high and nostrils quivering, every part of her listening, straining to hear something that might have been nothing more than a memory half-forgotten.

The longed for call had not sounded, and Karuah realised it perhaps might never come, though she might search for it as long as she lived. So it was, the mare extended her nose to the stallion once more, blew softly through her nostrils and told him she would trust him enough to lead her until that bay stallion called.

[yaruka]

Along the gentle lower rises of the Brindle Bill walked a stallion, posture alert though gait lacking the normal joie de vivre of a young stallion. There was something about the dark bay stallion that spoke of past joy and glory, that promised it again should thing look up. But for now there was something missing. Tiredly, he stopped for the umpteenth time, raising his head to the wind, clearly seeking the scent of someone or something.

Warring was exhausted. Not so much physically, but emotionally. For months he had travelled in search of his mate, yet since that terrible storm he had caught sight nor sound of his beautiful creamy mare. Sometimes in the winter he had felt like he was close to her, though he realised now that it had surely only been the presence of her ancestors in the wind, the legendary silver brumbies, that he had followed. Indeed, Warring had nearly perished more than once over the winter, following a mysterious snow horse up into higher and higher country until it vanished and left his stranded in belly deep snow. But he hadn’t given up, not yet. And this time, his customary probe into the wind was different. The stallion froze as he caught a familiar scent; certain he must only be imagining that hint of Karuah on the winds. But no. The stallion was fairly certain he couldn’t dream up something so realistic. Eagerly he sprung forward, a new energy in his gait now. Loping along he followed the mare’s scent in the breeze until he came to a final slope. There he looked down and felt his blood chill. Yes, there was his beautiful Karuah, it was undeniably her. Yet there she stood touching noses with another stallion.

Warring was crushed. Of course the mare had every right to find another stallion, they had been separated for so long, and in truth he was glad that she had had some protection in that time. Yet even so, to have found her and lost her again all in the same moment was so terrible that he could not bear it….Torn, the stallion called to his former mate, his wild call carried by the wind so it echoed clearly down into the valley.

“Come with me?” not a command, but a question.