Up close, the black horses were monstrous and otherworldly. Their eyes gleamed red, their mouths frothed as they champed at their bits and their bridles were strung with strange talismen, carved symbols that hinted at the power of the ancient curse that bound them to their fate.
Suddenly the head horseman rode forward to face the girl. The other riders closed ranks behind him and stood, watching and waiting as their leader raised his pale, bony hand and drew back the hood of his cape.
The face that was revealed beneath the hood did not belong to any earthly man. The horseman had no hair at all and his bald head throbbed with pale, purplish-grey veins. His cruel, pale eyes and hooked nose gave him a crow-like appearance. His skin, which shone horribly in the moonlight, was as white as a corpse.
The palomino snorted in fear at the sight of him and the girl put her hand to the sword that lay on her hip, ready to unsheathe it.
“Leave her alone, Francis,” the girl said bravely. “You cannot possibly think you will win like this.”
“Oh, but that is exactly what I think, Princess,” the black-robed rider hissed like a lizard. “Tonight we take Seraphine’s life. She is the last of her kind. Your last hope. When she joins us and becomes one of the Horses of Darkness then you will have lost your kingdom forever.”
The horseman jumped down from his black mount and stepped forward so that he was standing before the palomino. A smile played across his lips, which widened to reveal a set of long white fangs.
“Say good night, Seraphine,” the vampire rider said softly as he opened his mouth wide and lunged forward to plunge his fangs deep into the palomino’s golden neck…
“And…cut!” a voice shouted out. The rain suddenly stopped and the studio lights flashed on, bathing everyone in a golden glow.
“Terrific! Great scene, everyone! That’s a wrap!”
There was a clapping and a whooping from the film crew at the news that the night’s shooting was over. Issie jumped down off the palomino and looked up at the man who had shouted “cut!” He was sitting on an enormous camera crane erected high above the horses. “Hey, Rupert,” she called out to the director, “is it all right if I take this off now?” She gestured to the long blonde wig that she was wearing over her own long dark hair.
“Absolutely. Hand it over to Helen in make-up and give your costume back to Amber, then get those horses back to the stables and you can go home. You did great work this evening, Isadora. You too, Aidan!”
The head vampire rider smiled at this, then stuck his fingers in his mouth to pull out a pair of shiny, white fake fangs. “What a relief to finally have those out! They’re murder to wear when you’re riding!” he said, smiling at Issie.
“Ohmygod, Aidan! You are so scary with those fangs; sometimes I almost forget that we’re just making a movie and get all freaked out!” Issie grinned back.
Aidan, who was busy peeling off his latex bald cap to reveal the thick black hair hidden underneath, looked pleased at this. “Really? Thanks! You did some great stunt riding tonight, Issie. See you tomorrow on the set for breakfast, OK?”
“See you then,” Issie beamed.
As Aidan set off back down the hill, leading his horse, Issie’s best friends, Stella and Kate, rushed forward to help the black riders, each of them taking the reins of a pair of horses. With the lights on it was easy to see that these black horses weren’t evil or strange at all, but perfectly normal horses dressed up in costume. The girls held the horses still and waited patiently as make-up artists clustered around to wipe the fake froth from the horses’ mouths and remove the red glitter from around their eyes.
“That was so exciting!” Stella called out to Issie. “You did the best rear. Stardust wasn’t naughty at all!”
Issie looked at the palomino mare standing next to her. “She was good, wasn’t she?” Issie grinned.
“Good? She was brilliant!” Kate said, reaching forward to pat Stardust on her velvety nose. “I think you’re finally getting through to her, Issie.”
“I hope you’re right, Kate, I really do,” Issie said.
Stardust, the beautiful palomino mare, was the star of this movie and it was Issie’s job as her stunt rider to make her perform for the cameras. But the mare seemed determined to misbehave and her naughty stunts had the whole film crew upset. Aunt Hester had been driven to despair by her dangerous tricks. It was Hester, of course, who was responsible for involving Issie and her friends in the whole movie business in the first place…
Issie hadn’t heard from her aunt in months, since her last visit to Blackthorn Farm, so the phone call came as a bit of a surprise.
“Isadora! My favourite niece!” Hester had trilled down the phone. Her greeting made Issie laugh straightaway–Hester always called Issie her “favourite niece,” when in fact she was her only niece so she didn’t have much competition!
“Hi, Aunty Hess. How are things at the farm?”
Blackthorn Farm was a grand old country manor with hundreds of hectares of land, high in the hills outside Gisborne on the East Coast. It was there that Aunt Hester trained her mad menagerie of movie animals, including a team of stunt horses.
“Busy, busy, busy!” Hester told her. “We’ve got a big movie coming up–The Palomino Princess—have you heard of it?”
“Ohmygod!” Issie squealed. “Aunty Hess! I love that book! Are they making a film of it? How cool! And your horses are going to be in it?”
“Absolutely,” Hester said. “Well, at least a few of them are–Paris and Nicole and Destiny and Diablo to be exact. They need quite a few stunt horses for the film, but as you’ll know if you’ve already read the books, the Horses of Darkness all need to be pitch black–plus we need five palominos for Galatea and her princesses. Paris and Nicole are perfect for princess horses and Diablo is having his piebald patches dyed so that he can play one of the black horses.”
“That’s so exciting!” Issie said.
“I’m glad you think so, dear,” Hester said, “because I was hoping you might want to come and work with me on the movie.”
“What? Me?”
“Well, yes. And your friends too. They’re looking for riders and wranglers right now and you’ve got some school holidays coming up. I thought the timing was perfect,” Hester said.
“I couldn’t…” Issie began to protest, but Hester interrupted.
“I know Blaze is expecting her foal and you won’t want to leave her alone,” Hester said, “but the movie set isn’t far away from Chevalier Point. You could still go home at weekends to check on her. How long is it now until she’s due?”
“The vet says she has maybe a month to go,” Issie said.
“Well, that’s perfect then! They’re doing most of the filming with the actors back at the studio on blue screen—lots of special effects. That means the outdoor shooting at Chevalier Point is only scheduled to take a few weeks. Filming should be wrapped by the time your foal arrives.”
“But I…” Issie began.
“The best part is that this will give you a chance to ride in your holidays. I mean, you can’t possibly ride Blaze, can you? She must be so fat now, you won’t be able to fit a girth around that tummy of hers!” Hester insisted. “Listen, my favourite niece, I could really do with your help. There are nearly two dozen horses in this film and Aidan and I are responsible for all of them. Which is fine except it’s tricky to find riders who are the right size to play the palomino princesses. We need four girls who fit the costumes