TWENTY - MORTAL COMBAT-1

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    Fights between bears were on, and the subjeuch ritual. For a bear to kill another was rare, though, and when that happe was usually by act, or when one bear mistook the signals from another, as in the case of lorek Byrnison. Cases of straightforward murder, like lofurs killing of his own father, were rarer still.

    But occasionally there came circumstances in which the only way of settling a dispute was a fight to the death. And for that, a whole ceremonial rescribed.

    As soon as lofur annouhat lorek Byrnison was on his way, and a bat would take place, the bat ground was swept and smoothed, and armorers came up from the fire mio check lofurs armor. Every rivet was examined, every lied, and the plates were burnished with the fi sand. Just as much attention aid to his claws. The gold leaf was rubbed off, and each separate six-inch hook was sharpened and filed to a deadly point. Lyra watched with a growing siess i of her stomach, for lorek Byrnison wouldnt be having this attention; he had been marg over the ice for nearly twenty-four hours already without rest or food; he might have been injured in the crash. And she had let him in for this fight without his knowledge. At one point, after lofur Raknison had tested the sharpness of his claws on a fresh-killed walrus, slig its skin open like paper, and the power of his crashing blows on the walruss skull (two blows, and it was cracked like an egg), Lyra had to make an excuse to lofur and go away by herself to weep with fear.

    Even Pantalaimon, who could normally cheer her up, had little to say that was hopeful. All she could do was sult the alethiometer: he is an hour away, it told her, and again, she must trust him; and (this was harder to read) she even thought it was rebuking her for asking the same question twice.

    By this time, word had spread among the bears, and every part of the bat ground was crowded. Bears of high rank had the best places, and there ecial enclosure for the she-bears, including, of course, lofurs wives. Lyra rofoundly curious about she-bears, because she knew so little about them, but this was no time to wander about asking questions. Instead she stayed close to lofur Raknison and watched the courtiers around him assert their rank over the on bears from outside, and tried to guess the meaning of the various plumes and badges and tokens they all seemed to wear. Some of the highest-ranking, she saw, carried little manikins like lofurs rag-doll daemon, trying to curry favor, perhaps, by imitating the fashion hed begun. She was sardonically pleased to notice that when they saw that lofur had discarded his, they didnt know what to do with theirs. Should they throw them away? Were they out of favor now? How should they behave?

    { Because that was the prevailing mood in his court, she was beginning to see.

    They werent sure what they were. They werent like lorek Byrnison, pure aain and absolute; there was a stant pall of uainty hanging over them, as they watched one another and watched lofur.

    And they watched her, with open curiosity. She remained modestly close to lofur and said nothing, l her eyes whenever a bear looked at her.

    The fog had lifted by this time, and the air was clear; and as ce would have it, the brief lifting of darkoward noon cided with the time Lyra thought lorek was going to arrive. As she stood shivering on a little rise of dense-packed snow at the edge of the bat ground, she looked up toward the faint lightness in the sky, and longed with all her heart to see a flight ed elegant black shapes desding to bear her away; or to see the Auroras hidden city, where she would be able to walk safely along those broad boulevards in the sunlight; or to see Ma Costas broad arms,<big>藏书网</big> to smell the friendly smells of flesh and cooking that enfolded you in her presence....

    She found herself g, with tears that froze almost as soon as they formed, and which she had to brush aainfully. She was shtened. Bears, who didnt cry, couldnt uand what was happening to her; it was some human process, meaningless. And of course Pantalaimon couldnt fort her as he normally would, though she kept her hand in her pocket firmly around his warm little mouse-form, and he nuzzled at her fingers.

    Beside her, the smiths were making the final adjustments to lofur Raknisons armor. He reared like a great metal tower, shining in polished steel, the smooth plates inlaid with wires of gold; his helmet enclosed the upper part of his head in a glistening carapace of silver-gray, with deep eye slits; and the underside of his body rotected by a close-fitting sark of  mail. It was when she saw this that Lyra realized that she had betrayed lorek Byrnison, for lorek had nothing like it. His armor protected only his bad sides. She looked at lofur Raknison, so sleek and powerful, a a deep siess in her, like guilt and fear bined.

    She said “Excuse me, Your Majesty, if you remember what I said to you before...”

    Her shaking voice felt thin and weak in the air. lofur Raknison turned his mighty head, distracted from the target three bears were holding up in front for him to slash at with his perfect claws.

    “Yes? Yes?”

    “Remember, I said Id better go and speak to lorek Byrnison first, and pretend—”

    But before she could even finish her sentehere was a roar from the bears ochtower. The others all knew what it meant and took it 藏书网up with a triumphaement. They had seen lorek.

    “Please?” Lyra said urgently. “Ill fool him, youll see.”

    “Yes. Yes. Go now. Go and ence him!”

    lofur Raknison was hardly able to speak fe aement.

    Lyra left his side and walked across the bat ground, bare and clear as it was, leaving her little footprints in the snow, and the bears on the far side parted to let her through. As their great bodies lumbered aside, the horizon opened, gloomy in the pallor of the light. Where was lorek Byrnison? She could see nothing; but then, the watchtower was high, and they could see what was still hidden from her. All she could do was walk forward in the snow.

    He saw her before she saw him. There was a bounding and a heavy k of metal, and in a flurry of snow lorek Byrnison stood beside her.

    “Oh, lorek! Ive doerrible thing! My dear, yoing to have to fight lofur Raknison, and you ent ready— youre tired and hungry, and your armors—”

    “What terrible thing?”

    “I told him you was ing, because I read it on the symbol reader; and hes desperate to be like a person and have a daemon, just desperate. So I tricked him into thinking that I was your daemon, and I was going to desert you and be his instead, but he had to fight you to make it happen. Because otherwise, lorek, dear, theyd never let you fight, they were going to just burn you up before you got close—”

    “You tricked lofur Raknison?”

    “Yes. I made him agree that hed fight you instead of just killing you straight off like an outcast, and the winner would be king of the bears. I had to do that, because—”

    “Belacqua? No. You are Lyra Silvertongue,” he said. “To fight him is all I want.

    e, little daemon.”

    She looked at lorek Byrnison in his battered armor, lean and ferocious, a as if her heart would burst with pride.

    They walked together toward the massive hulk of lofurs palace, where the bat ground lay flat and open at the foot of the walls. Bears clustered at the battlements, white faces filled every window, and their heavy forms stood like a dense wall of misty white ahead, marked with the black dots of eyes and noses.

    The  ones moved aside, making two lines for lorek Byrnison and his daemon to walk.. between. Every bears eyes were fixed on them.

    lorek halted across the bat ground from lofur Raknison. The king came down from the rise of trodden snow, and the two bears faced each other several yards apart.

    Lyra was so close to lorek that she could feel a trembling in him like a great dynamo, geing mighty anbaric forces. She touched him briefly on the neck at the edge of his helmet and said, “Fight well, lorek my dear. Youre the real king, a. Hes nothing.”

    Theood back.

    “Bears!” lorek Byrnison roared. An ech back from the palace walls and startled birds out of their s. He went on: “The terms of this bat are these. If lofur Raknison kills me, then he will be king forever, safe from challenge or dispute. If I kill lofur Raknison, I shall be your king. My first order to you all will be to tear down that palace, that perfumed house of mockery and tinsel, and hurl the gold and marble into the sea. Iron is bear-metal. Gold is not.

    lofur Raknison has polluted Svalbard. I have e to se it. lofur Raknison, I challenge you.”

    Then lofur bounded forward a step or two, as if he could hardly hold himself back.

    “Bears!” he roared in his turn. “lorek Byrnison has e back at my invitation.

    I drew him here. It is for me to make the terms of this bat, and they are these: if I kill lorek Byrnison, his flesh shall be torn apart and scattered to the cliff-ghasts. His head shall be displayed above my palace. His memory shall be obliterated. It shall be a capital crime to speak his name....”

    He tinued, and then each bear spoke again. It was a formula, a ritual faithfully followed. Lyra looked at the two of them, so utterly different: lofur so glossy and powerful, immense in his strength ah, splendidly armored, proud and kinglike; and lorek smaller, though she had hought he would look small, and poorly equipped, his armor rusty aed. But his armor was his soul. He had made it and it fitted him. They were one. lofur was not tent with his armor; he wanted another soul as well. He was restless while lorek was still.

    And she was aware that all the other bears were making the parison too. But lorek and lofur were more than just two bears. There were two kinds of beardom opposed here, two futures, two destinies. lofur had begun to take them in one dire, and lorek would take them in another, and in the same moment, oure would close forever as the an to unfold.

    As their ritual bat moved toward the sed phase, the two bears began to prowl restlessly on the snow, edging forward, swinging their heads. There was not a flicker of movement from the spectators: but all eyes followed them.

    Finally the warriors were still and silent, watg each other face to face across the width of the bat ground.

    Then with a roar and a blur of snow both bears moved at the same moment. Like two great masses of rock balanced on adjoining peaks and shaken loose by ahquake, which bound down the mountainsides gathering speed, leaping over crevasses and knog trees into splinters, until they crash into each other so hard that both are smashed to powder and flying chips of stohat was how the two bears came together. The crash as they met resounded iill air and echoed back from the palace wall. But they wereroyed, as rock would have been. They both fell aside, and the first to rise was lorek. He twisted up in a lithe spring and grappled with lofur, whose armor had been damaged by the collision and who couldnt easily raise his head. lorek made at once for the vulnerable gap at his neck. He raked the white fur, and then hooked his claws beh the edge of lofurs helmet and wre forward.

    Sensing the danger, lofur snarled and shook himself as Lyra had seen lorek shake himself at the waters edge, sending sheets of water flying high into the air.

    And lorek fell away, dislodged, and with a screech of twistial lofur stood up tall, straightening the steel of his back plates by sheer strength. Then like an avalanche he hurled himself down on lorek, who was still trying to rise.

    Lyra felt her owh knocked out of her by the force of that crashing fall.

    Certainly the very ground shook beh her. How could lorek survive that? He was struggling to twist himself and gain a purchase on the ground, but his feet were uppermost, and lofur had fixed his teeth somewhere near loreks throat.

    Drops of hot blood were flying through the air: one landed on Lyras furs, and she pressed her hand to it li<samp>.</samp>ke a token of love.

    Then loreks rear claws dug into the links of lofurs -mail sark and ripped downward. The whole front came away, and lofur lurched sideways to look at the damage, leaving lorek to scramble upright again.

    For a moment the two bears stood apart, getting their breath back. lofur was hampered now by that  mail, because from a prote it had ged all at oo a hindra was still faste the bottom, and trailed around his rear legs. However, lorek was worse off. He was bleeding freely from a wound at his neck, and panting heavily.

    But he leaped at lofur before the king could disentangle himself from the ging  mail, and knocked him head over heels, following up with a lu the bare part of lofurs neck, where the edge of the helmet was bent. lofur threw him off, and thewo bears were at each ain, throwing up fountains of snorayed in all dires and sometimes made it hard to see who had the advantage.

    Lyra watched, hardly daring to breathe, and squeezing her hands together so tight it hurt. She thought she saw lofur tearing at a wound in loreks belly, but that couldnt be right, because a moment later, after another vulsive explosion of snow, both bears were standing upright like boxers, and lorek was slashing with mighty claws at lofurs face, with lofur hitting back just as savagely.

    Lyra trembled at the weight of those blows. As if a giant were swinging a sledgehammer, and that hammer were armed with five steel spikes...

    Iron ged on iroh crashed oh, breath roared harshly, feet thundered on the hard-packed ground. The snow around lashed with red and trodden down for yards into a crimso<samp></samp>n mud.

    lofurs armor was in a pitiful state by this time, the plates torn and distorted, the gold inlay torn out or smeared thickly with blood, and his helmet googether. loreks was in much better dition, for all its ugliness:

    dented, but intact, standing up far better to the great sledgehammer blows of the bear-king, and turning aside those brutal six-inch claws.

    But against that, lofur was bigger and strohan lorek, and lorek was weary and hungry, and had lost more blood. He was wounded in the belly, on both arms, and at the neck, whereas lofur was bleeding only from his lower jaw. Lyra loo help her dear friend, but what could she do?

    And it was going badly for lorek now. He was limping; every time he put his left forepaw on the ground, they could see that it hardly bore his weight. He never used it to strike with, and the blows from his right hand were feebler, too, almost little pats pared with the mighty crushing buffets hed delivered only a few minutes before.

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