He heard the others cry and shriek in hatred as they fled, and he knew that Lyra was unhurt beside him; but he threw himself down in the mud with only one thing in his mind.
“Tialys! Tialys!” he cried, and avoiding the snapping teeth, he hauled the biggest cliff‑ghast’s head aside. Tialys was dead, his spurs deep in her neck. The creature was kicking and biting still, so he cut off her head and rolled it away before lifting the dead Gallivespian clear of the leathery neck.
“Will,” said Lyra behind him, “Will, look at this…”
She was gazing into the crystal litter. It was unbroken, although the crystal was stained and smeared with mud and the blood from what the cliff‑ghasts had been eating before they found it. It lay tilted crazily among the rocks, and inside it –
“Oh, Will, he’s still alive! But – the poor thing…”
Will saw her hands pressing against the crystal, trying to reach in to the angel and comfort him; because he was so old, and he was terrified, crying like a baby and cowering away into the lowest corner.
“He must be so old – I’ve never seen anyone suffering like that – oh, Will, can’t we let him out?”
Will cut through the crystal in one movement and reached in to help the angel out. Demented and powerless, the aged being could only weep and mumble in fear and pain and misery, and he shrank away from what seemed like yet another threat.
“It’s all right,” Will said, “we can help you hide, at least. Come on, we won’t hurt you.”
The shaking hand seized his and feebly held on. The old one was uttering a wordless groaning whimper that went on and on, and grinding his teeth, and compulsively plucking at himself with his free hand; but as Lyra reached in, too, to help him out, he tried to smile, and to bow, and his ancient eyes deep in their wrinkles blinked at her with innocent wonder.
Between them they helped the ancient of days out of his crystal cell; it wasn’t hard, for he was as light as paper, and he would have followed them anywhere, having no will of his own, and responding to simple kindness like a flower to the sun. But in the open air there was nothing to stop the wind from damaging him, and to their dismay his form began to loosen and dissolve. Only a few moments later he had vanished completely, and their last impression was of those eyes, blinking in wonder, and a sigh of the most profound and exhausted relief.
Then he was gone: a mystery dissolving in mystery. It had all taken less than a minute, and Will turned back at once to the fallen Chevalier. He picked up the little body, cradling it in his palms, and found his tears flowing fast.
But Lyra was saying something urgently.
“Will – we’ve got to move – we’ve got to, the Lady can hear those horses coming – ”
Out of the indigo sky an indigo hawk swooped low, and Lyra cried out and ducked; but Salmakia cried with all her strength, “No, Lyra! No! Stand high, and hold out your fist!”
So Lyra held still, supporting one arm with the other, and the blue hawk wheeled and turned and swooped again, to seize her knuckles in sharp claws.
On the hawk’s back sat a gray‑haired lady, whose clear‑eyed face looked first at Lyra, then at Salmakia clinging to her collar.
“Madame…” said Salmakia faintly, “we have done…”
“You have done all you need. Now we are here,” said Madame Oxentiel, and twitched the reins.
At once the hawk screamed three times, so loud that Lyra’s head rang. In response there darted from the sky first one, then two and three and more, then hundreds of brilliant warrior‑bearing dragonflies, all skimming so fast it seemed they were bound to crash into one another; but the reflexes of the insects and the skills of their riders were so acute that instead, they seemed to weave a tapestry of swift and silent needle‑bright color over and around the children.
“Lyra,” said the lady on the hawk, “and Wilclass="underline" follow us now, and we shall take you to your daemons.”
As the hawk spread its wings and lifted away from one hand, Lyra felt the little weight of Salmakia fall into the other, and knew in a moment that only the Lady’s strength of mind had kept her alive this long. She cradled her body close, and ran with Will under the cloud of dragonflies, stumbling and falling more than once, but holding the Lady gently against her heart all the time.
“Left! Left!” cried the voice from the blue hawk, and in the lightning‑riven murk they turned that way; and to their right Will saw a body of men in light gray armor, helmeted, masked, their gray wolf daemons padding in step beside them. A stream of dragonflies made for them at once, and the men faltered. Their guns were no use, and the Gallivespians were among them in a moment, each warrior springing from his insect’s back, finding a hand, an arm, a bare neck, and plunging his spur in before leaping back to the insect as it wheeled and skimmed past again. They were so quick it was almost impossible to follow. The soldiers turned and fled in panic, their discipline shattered.
But then came hoofbeats in a sudden thunder from behind, and the children turned in dismay: those horse‑people were bearing down on them at a gallop, and already one or two had nets in their hands, whirling them around over their heads and entrapping the dragonflies, to snap the nets like whips and fling the broken insects aside.
“This way!” came the Lady’s voice, and then she said, “Duck, now – get down low!”
They did, and felt the earth shake under them. Could that be hoofbeats? Lyra raised her head and wiped the wet hair from her eyes, and saw something quite different from horses.
“Iorek!” she cried, joy leaping in her chest. “Oh, Iorek!”
Will pulled her down again at once, for not only Iorek Byrnison but a regiment of his bears were making directly for them. Just in time Lyra tucked her head down, and then Iorek bounded over them, roaring orders to his bears to go left, go right, and crush the enemy between them.
Lightly, as if his armor weighed no more than his fur, the bear‑king spun to face Will and Lyra, who were struggling upright.
“Iorek – behind you – they’ve got nets!” Will cried, because the riders were almost on them.
Before the bear could move, a rider’s net hissed through the air, and instantly Iorek was enveloped in steel‑strong cobweb. He roared, rearing high, slashing with huge paws at the rider. But the net was strong, and although the horse whinnied and reared back in fear, Iorek couldn’t fight free of the coils.
“Iorek!” Will shouted. “Keep still! Don’t move!”
He scrambled forward through the puddles and over the tussocks as the rider tried to control the horse, and reached Iorek just at the moment when a second rider arrived and another net hissed through the air.
But Will kept his head: instead of slashing wildly and getting in more of a tangle, he watched the flow of the net and cut it through in a matter of moments. The second net fell useless to the ground, and then Will leapt at Iorek, feeling with his left hand, cutting with his right. The great bear stood motionless as the boy darted here and there over his vast body, cutting, freeing, clearing the way.
“Now go!” Will yelled, leaping clear, and Iorek seemed to explode upward full into the chest of the nearest horse.
The rider had raised his scimitar to sweep down at the bear’s neck, but Iorek Byrnison in his armor weighed nearly two tons, and nothing at that range could withstand him. Horse and rider, both of them smashed and shattered, fell harmlessly aside. Iorek gathered his balance, looked around to see how the land lay, and roared to the children:
“On my back! Now!”
Lyra leapt up, and Will followed. Pressing the cold iron between their legs, they felt the massive surge of power as Iorek began to move.
Behind them, the rest of the bears were engaging with the strange cavalry, helped by the Gallivespians, whose stings enraged the horses. The lady on the blue hawk skimmed low and called: “Straight ahead now! Among the trees in the valley!”