The Golden Compass (Page 65)

“Who’d scalped it?”

“Well, the Tartars, that’s what the Scholars thought….But maybe it wasn’t.”

“It might not have been Grumman’s head,” said Lee Scoresby. “Your father might have been misleading the Scholars.”

“I suppose he might,” said Lyra thoughtfully. “He was asking them for money.”

“And when they saw the head, they gave him the money?”

“Yeah.”

“Good trick to play. People are shocked when they see a thing like that; they don’t like to look too close.”

“Especially Scholars,” said Lyra.

“Well, you’d know better than I would. But if that was Grumman’s head, I’ll bet it wasn’t the Tartars who scalped him. They scalp their enemies, not their own, and he was a Tartar by adoption.”

Lyra turned that over in her mind as they drove on. There were wide currents full of meaning flowing fast around her; the Gobblers and their cruelty, their fear of Dust, the city in the Aurora, her father in Svalbard, her mother….And where was she? The alethiometer, the witches flying northward. And poor little Tony Makarios; and the clockwork spy-fly; and lorek Byrnison’s uncanny fencing…

She fell asleep. And every hour they drew closer to Bolvangar.

Fourteen

Bolvangar Lights

The fact that the gyptians had heard or seen nothing of Mrs. Coulter worried Farder Coram and John Faa more than they let Lyra know; but they weren’t to know that she was worried too. Lyra feared Mrs. Coulter and thought about her often. And whereas Lord Asriel was now “father,” Mrs. Coulter was never “mother.” The reason for that was Mrs. Coulter’s daemon, the golden monkey, who had filled Pantalaimon with a powerful loathing, and who, Lyra felt, had pried into her secrets, and particularly that of the alethiometer.

And they were bound to be chasing her; it was silly to think otherwise. The spy-fly proved that, if nothing else.

But when an enemy did strike, it wasn’t Mrs. Coulter. The gyptians had planned to stop and rest their dogs, repair a couple of sledges, and get all their weapons into shape for the assault on Bolvangar. John Faa hoped that Lee Scoresby might find some ground gas to fill his smaller balloon (for he had two, apparently) and go up to spy out the land. However, the aeronaut attended to the condition of the weather as closely as a sailor, and he said there was going to be a fog; and sure enough, as soon as they stopped, a thick mist descended. Lee Scoresby knew he’d see nothing from the sky, so he had to content himself with checking his equipment, though it was all in meticulous order. Then, with no warning at all, a volley of arrows flew out of the dark.

Three gyptian men went down at once, and died so silently that no one heard a thing. Only when they slumped clumsily across the dog traces or lay unexpectedly still did the nearest men notice what was happening, and then it was already too late, because more arrows were flying at them. Some men looked up, puzzled by the fast irregular knocking sounds that came from up and down the line as arrows hurtled into wood or frozen canvas.

The first to come to his wits was John Faa, who shouted orders from the center of the line. Cold hands and stiff limbs moved to obey as yet more arrows flew down like rain, straight rods of rain tipped with death.

Lyra was in the open, and the arrows were passing over her head. Pantalaimon heard before she did, and became a leopard and knocked her over, making her less of a target. Brushing snow out of her eyes, she rolled over to try and see what was happening, for the semidarkness seemed to be overflowing with confusion and noise. She heard a mighty roar, and the clang and scrape of lorek Byrnison’s armor as he leaped fully clad over the sledges and into the fog, and that was followed by screams, snarling, crunching and tearing sounds, great smashing blows, cries of terror and roars of bearish fury as he laid them waste.

But who was them? Lyra had seen no enemy figures yet. The gyptians were swarming to defend the sledges, but that (as even Lyra could see) made them better targets; and their rifles were not easy to fire in gloves and mittens; she had only heard four or five shots, as against the ceaseless knocking rain of arrows. And more and more men fell every minute.

Oh, John Faa! she thought in anguish. You didn’t foresee this, and I didn’t help you!

But she had no more than a second to think that, for there was a mighty snarl from Pantalaimon, and something— another daemon—hurtled at him and knocked him down, crushing all the breath out of Lyra herself; and then hands were hauling at her, lifting her, stifling her cry with foul-smelling mittens, tossing her through the air into another’s arms, and then pushing her flat down into the snow again, so that she was dizzy and breathless and hurt all at once. Her arms were hauled behind till her shoulders cracked, and someone lashed her wrists together, and then a hood was crammed over her head to muffle her screams, for scream she did, and lustily:

“lorek! lorek Byrnison! Help me!”

But could he hear? She couldn’t tell; she was hurled this way and that, crushed onto a hard surface which then began to lurch and bump like a sledge. The sounds that reached her were wild and confused. She might have heard lorek Byrnison’s roar, but it was a long way off, and then she was jolting over rough ground, arms twisted, mouth stifled, sobbing with rage and fear. And strange voices spoke around her.

“Pan…”

“I’m here, shh, I’ll help you breathe. Keep still…”

His mouse paws tugged at the hood until her mouth was freer, and she gulped at the frozen air.

“Who are they?” she whispered.

“They look like Tartars. I think they hit John Faa.”

“No—”