Chapter 3 3. Scavengers

The knight's bones are dust, the knight's good sword is rust, the knight's soul is with the saint I believe. —Serafina Pekkala, Queen of the Witch Tribe, Lake Enara, ST Coleridge, weeps through the smoky arctic sky, weeping with resentment, worry and regret.She resented Mrs. Coulter, the woman she had sworn to kill; worried about the state of the land she loved; regretted... she would meet again. Meanwhile, looking down at melting snowcapped mountaintops, flooded lowland forests, and swollen seas, her heart ached. But instead of stopping to visit her homeland, or comfort and encourage her sisters, she flew north, and north, into the smog surrounding Svalbard, the kingdom of the armored bear Iorek Bernison and strong winds.

She barely recognized the main island anymore.The peaks are bare and dark, and only a few shaded valleys in the back of the sun still have a little snow in the shaded corners, but what on earth is the sun doing here at this time of year?All nature is turned upside down. It took her most of the day to find the Bear King, who she saw racing a walrus among the rocks in the sea to the north of the island.Bears are much harder to kill in water: when land is covered in ice and large sea mammals come ashore to breathe, bears have the advantage of camouflage and prey are at a disadvantage.That's the way things should be.

But Iorek Bernison was hungry, and not even the stinging tusks of the walrus could stop him.Serafina watched the two animals fight, turning the white water red, and she saw Iorek dragging the carcass of the walrus out of the surf and onto a wide rock ledge, while three sparsely furred foxes watched in awe. Waiting for their turn to enjoy this delicious meal. After the Bear King finished eating, Serafina flew down to talk to him.Now is the time for her to face her regrets. "King Iorek Bernison," she said, "will I speak to you? I lay down my arms." She placed her bow and arrow on the wet rock between them, and Iorek looked up quickly.She knew that if his face could express emotion it would be one of surprise.

"Come on, Serafina Pekkala," he growled, "we've never fought, have we?" "King Iorek, I failed to protect your comrade, Lee Scoresby." The bear's small black eyes and blood-spattered muzzle were motionless, and she could see the wind blowing the milky-white fur-tips on his back.He said nothing. "Mr. Scoresby is dead," continued Serafina. "Before I parted with him, I gave him a flower to call for me in case of need. When I heard his call, I flew over. , but it was too late. He died fighting the Muscovite army, but I have no idea why they came there, or why he was blocking them, and he could have escaped easily. Iore King Ke, I regret to death."

"Where did it happen?" asked Iorek Bernison. "In another world, it would be a long story." "Let's talk about it then." She told him what Lee Scoresby set out to find: to find a man named Stanislaus.Grumman's people.She told him of the breaking of the barrier between worlds by Lord Asriel, and of some of the consequences of this, the melting of the ice being one of them.She also tells about the witch Ruta.Skadi's pursuit of the angel, she tried to describe those flying objects to the bear king according to Ruta's description: the light projected on them, their crystal clear appearance, their rich wisdom.

She then described what she found when she heard Lee's call. "I put a spell on his body so it wouldn't rot," she said, "and it will stay until you see him, if you wish. But this disturbs me, Iore Kewang. Everything makes me uneasy, but mainly this one." "Where is that child?" "I entrusted her to my sisters, because I had to obey Lee's call." "In the same world?" "Yes, in the same world." "How do I get there?" She explained.Iorek Bernison listened impassively, then said, "I'm going to see Lee Scoresby, and then I must go south."

"south?" "These lands are melting. I've been thinking about it, Serafina Pekkala. I've chartered a ship." The three little foxes had been waiting patiently. Two of them were lying on the ground with their heads resting on their paws, and the other was still sitting upright, listening to their conversation.Arctic foxes, scavengers, have learned some languages, but their brains are structured so that they can only understand sentences in the simple present tense.What Iorek and Serafina said was just meaningless noise to them.Besides, when they talk, most of them are lies, so it doesn't matter if they pass on what they hear: no one can tell which is the truth, although the credulous cliff ghosts often believe most of them, and never Learn from their disappointment.Both bears and witches are accustomed to being picked up by these animals for scraps of their conversations, like leftovers from their meals.

"What about you, Serafina Pekkala?" Iorek continued. "What will you do now?" "I'm going to find the gypsies," she said, "I think they'll be needed." "Lord Faa," said the bear, "yes. They are good fighters. Go well." He turned and slid quietly into the water, and began to swim steadily and tirelessly towards the new world. Some time passed, Iorek.Bernese pine straddles blackened undergrowth and hot cracked rock on the edge of a burnt forest.The sun glared through the smoke, but he ignored the scorching heat, the charcoal that had blackened his white fur, and the midges that searched in vain for skin bites.

He had traveled a long way, and somewhere along the way he found himself swimming into that other world.He noticed a change in the smell of the water and the temperature of the air, but the air was still breathable and the water still held him up, so he continued to swim.Now that he had left the sea behind, he was almost at the place Serafina Pekkala had described.He glanced around, his black eyes gazing at the grotesque rocks on the gable of a limestone spur above his head. Between the edge of the burnt forest and the peaks lay a stony slope of boulders and rubble, littered with seared and twisted metal, the plates or pillars of some complex machine.Iorek Bernison looked at them, half blacksmith and warrior, but there was nothing in the fragments that he could use.He noticed a cord with powerful claws on one of the less badly damaged struts, and the metal was light and thin to the touch.He turned immediately and glanced at the gable again.

Then he saw what he was looking for: between the jagged gable walls a narrow ravine stretched behind the mountain, and at the mouth of the ravine was a large, low boulder. He climbed steadily towards the valley step by step.In the silence, the dry bones crackled under his great palms, for many people died here, picked clean by coyotes and vultures and smaller animals.But the bear king ignored it, and he walked cautiously towards the rock.The road was soft and he was heavy, and more than once the gravel shifted under his feet and dragged him down again, sending dust and pebbles flying.But every time he slipped down, he started to climb again, indomitable and unhurried, until he reached the rock.The ground there is much firmer.

The big boulder was full of bumps and mottled bullet marks, and everything the witch said was true.In order to prove all this, the witch planted a small arctic flower in a crack in the rock as a mark, and the purple saxifrage bloomed at an inopportune time. Iorek Bernison rounded the rock to the top, and it was a good cover from the enemies below, but not good enough, for a few hits in the storm of bullets that chipped the rock Hitting their mark, they were lying where they fell, in the dead body of the man lying stiff in the shadows. He was still a corpse, not a skeleton, because the witch had cast a spell on him that would prevent him from decaying.Iorek could see his old comrade's face wrinkled and taut from the pain of the wound, and he could see the jagged holes in his clothes where the bullets had passed through.The wizard's spell must have not covered the splattered blood, the insects and the sun and the wind had completely dispersed it.Lee Scoresby doesn't look like he's asleep, doesn't look like he's peaceful, he looks like he's dead in battle, but he seems to know he's won his battle. Because the Texas balloonist was one of the few people Iorek admired, he accepted the last gift from the dead.His claws nimbly tore off the dead man's clothes, split his old friend's body with one palm, and devoured his flesh and blood.It was the first meal in days and he was hungry. But a complex cloud of thoughts was tangling in Bear King's mind, more than hunger and contentment.He thought of Lyra, the girl he had called Eloquent Tongue.The last time she saw her, she was crossing an abyss on his Svalbard island on a flimsy snow bridge.He also thought of the turmoil among the witches, the rumors of gangs and alliances and wars, and the queer facts of this new world itself, of which the wizard insisted that there were many, and that their destinies were more or less hanging over the fate of this child. Then there is the melting of the ice, and he and his people live on the ice, and the ice is their home, and the ice is their castle.Since the great upheaval in the North Pole, the ice had begun to disappear, and Iorek knew he must find a frozen stronghold for his people, or they would perish.Li had told him that there were mountains in the south that were too high for his balloon to fly, capped by ice and snow all year round.Exploring these peaks was his next mission. But now a simpler matter took hold of his heart, something bright, hard, and unshakable: revenge.Lee, who once rescued Iorek with a balloon, and fought alongside him at the North Pole in his world.Scoresby is dead.Iorek will avenge him.The flesh and blood of that good man will nourish him, and only when enough blood is splashed will his heart be at peace. The sun was already setting by the time Iorek finished his meal, and the air had cooled.The Bear King made a heap of the remaining fragments, picked up the flower in his beak, and placed it in the center as humans like to do.Now that the wizard's spell was broken, anyone who came could touch Li's surviving body, and before long it would nourish a dozen different beings. Then Iorek rose and descended the mountain again to the sea, heading south. Cliff Ghosts love foxes when they can get hold of them.These little guys are tricky and hard to catch, but their meat is tender and fat. Before killing the fox, the Cliff Ghost made it talk, laughing out loud at its stupid babble. "The bear must go south! I bet! Wizards are in trouble! Really! Bet! Swear!" "Bears don't go south, you lying filth!" "Really! Bear King must go south! Show you walruses—thin and fat ones—" "Bear King going south?" "Flyers get treasure! Flyers—angels—crystal treasures!" "Flying objects—like cliff ghosts! Treasure?" "Like light, not like cliff spooks. Rich! Crystal! Wizards in trouble—sorry wizards—Scoresby's dead—" "Dead? The balloon man is dead?" The cliff ghost's laughter echoed around the dry cliff. "The Witch killed him—Scoresby is dead, the King Bear went south—" "Scoresby is dead! Ha, ha, Scoresby is dead!" The cliff ghost twisted off the fox's head and competed with his brothers for its entrails. They will come, they will come! " "But where are you, Laila? . She couldn't answer that. "I think I'm dreaming, Roger." That was all she could say. Behind the little boy, she could see more ghosts, dozens and hundreds, their heads huddled together, peering closely, listening to every word. "Where's that woman?" said Roger, "hope she's not dead, and live as long as she can, because if she comes down here, there's nowhere to hide and she'll never leave us. That's what I see The only good thing about death is that she is not dead, but I know that one day she will die..." Laila was shocked. "I think I'm dreaming, I don't know where she is!"