It actually wasn't that far to Badbury Forest, but Lee visited his boarding house to collect his belongings and then he had to stop and buy lunch before they were halfway there. His stomach was griping. Lyra too displayed a ravenous appetite, and the supplies they purchased at an inn and that Lee had intended to last a couple of days were two-thirds eaten by the time they reached the forest edge.

'Don't know what's up with me,' Lee remarked as he slung an apple core over a hedgerow. 'I'm not normally this peckish.'

'I always eat a lot,' Lyra said through a mouthful of bread and ham. 'So does my father. We need the energy, he says.'

'Smart guy,' Lee murmured, and they walked on.

Hester was worried about pursuit, and Pantalaimon turned into a hawk and drifted above them as they journeyed, keeping an eye on the road behind them, but they reached the forest without incident. Lyra led the way after that, leading Lee through the trees, not following any particular path, making her way deeper into the woodland through memory or instinct or some knowledge unknown to Lee.

After a good half-hour, they came to an escarpment of rocks, rising high in the midst of the trees, the golden stone almost luminous where the afternoon sun touched it, the moss and leaves covering large segments of it a pale, young green.

Lyra went directly to a rock at the base of the cliff, one entirely covered by ivy, and to Lee's surprise, pulled it aside. It proved to be a natural green curtain and lifted to reveal a decent sized hole. No, not a hole – a tunnel, Lee realised as he peered into it.

'In winter we hide it with branches,' Lyra explained matter-of-factly. 'Now we use ivy, to blend in. Come on, in here. Cover it back up with the ivy when you're properly inside.'

She dropped to all fours and vanished into the tunnel, and there was nothing for it but to follow.

Lee had to drop to his knees and crawl into the mouth of the tunnel, covering the entrance back up as instructed. Hester loped on ahead as Lee crawled after her, cursing as he banged his shoulder on the rock.

'It gets taller a few metres ahead,' Hester informed him as she turned and came back to check on him. Lee persevered and found the roof of the tunnel rising as promised. A little further and there was room enough for him to stand. He shuffled cautiously towards the light shimmering at the end of the passageway.

'Come on!' came Lyra's voice. 'They all want to meet you!'

Lee sped up a little. He came to the tunnel's end and stepped out into the light. He blinked to clear his vision and saw –

'Holy hell,' Lee breathed. Hester, standing beside him, was struck dumb, an occurrence Lee would have thoroughly enjoyed had he not been stupid with shock.

They were standing in a great circle, a hollow in the ridge they had seen the exterior of. Above them the cliffs rose, higher than three men standing on each other's shoulders. Set into the cliffs were what looked like the mouths of caves, a couple with curtains strung across them. Although there was no roof – the hollow was open to the sky – the trees growing around the rim leaned over the edge and their branches tangled and grew so closely together that almost no blue could be glimpsed between the leaves, and the light that straggled through was dim and cool.

And there were wolves. Many wolves. A quick count supplied the number eight, some full-grown and formidable, some younger and sapling slim.

Lee's hand went automatically to his revolver, but he stopped himself from drawing and aiming. The wolves were weaving in and out of each other as they gazed at him, eyes luminous in the half-light, their motions easy, graceful. But none were lunging, crouching or even snarling. They were cautious, true, but more…curious.

In the midst of them were Lyra and Pan. Lyra was smiling, stroking their grey and black and oxblood heads, while Pan had turned into a wolf as well and was mingling with the pack.

'It's all right!' she said, turning back to Lee. 'These are my friends, the ones I mentioned. Everyone, this is Mr Scoresby and Hester. They've saved me twice now. Mr Scoresby, this is… everyone.'

'Uh, hello, everyone,' said Lee, his hand falling away from his gun. Hester rolled her eyes but muttered 'afternoon, all.'

Two wolves broke away from the pack and walked up to him. One was grey all over with a scar on its muzzle, the other was grey and brown and had an unusually thin tail, more like a dog's than a wolf's.

'Hold out your hand,' Lyra instructed him. 'Let them get to know you.'

Lee did as he was bid, mostly because he couldn't think of an alternative. The wolves sniffed at his palm, and then each licked his hand with a rough tongue. Lyra smiled at them all.

'That's Nose-scar and Rattail,' she informed him. 'They're the leaders, the breeding pair. They like you.'

'Good,' Lee muttered, withdrawing his hand. 'I'm guessing I wouldn't last long if they didn't.'

'You think?' asked Hester in her most withering tones. 'Hey you!' she added, as Rattail sniffed at her. 'Keep your nose to yourself.'

Rattail wagged her tail at the daemon. Hester tutted. Lee grinned.

'Guess you have an admirer, Hester,' he teased.

'So long as I stay off the menu,' she grumbled.

'They won't hurt you,' Lyra reassured her. 'They can tell you're a daemon and not an ordinary hare.' She glanced up at Lee. 'And I've told them you're our friend. The bear was right. I can talk to them – sort of.'

The other wolves began walking up to Lee and Hester, greeting them one by one. He obligingly held out his hands to them, though he refrained from touching them, not sure if they'd like it. Lyra watched approvingly.

'Don't touch them on the head,' she said suddenly. 'They don't like it, it's a dominant gesture. Rub them on the belly instead.'

'I'll think I'll save that for when we're better acquainted,' Lee answered, smiling. His surprise and apprehension were fading, to be replaced by a wild excitement. 'Kid, this is…astonishing. I've seen armoured bears, met witches, seen shamans do magic, flown to every corner of the north, but I've never seen something as extraordinary as you and these wolves.'

Lyra beamed at this praise. The wolves all began wagging their tails. One smallish, grey specimen began yipping and leaping around, before Lyra hushed him.

'We got to be quiet!' she hissed at him, and the poor fellow stopped his antics and flattened himself to the ground. Lee chuckled, but Lyra was unamused.

'We've got to be secret,' she informed. 'That's why they don't howl, they haven't for ages in case the hunters hear them. They hate it, poor dears, but it's for their own good. You too, Mr Scoresby – no noise, and you mustn't tell anyone.'

'I've given you my word on that, Lyra, and I meant it,' Lee answered, suddenly serious. 'Now, we've done the introduction, so how about these explanations you mentioned? Because I'm telling you, curious is too weak a word for how I'm feeling after seeing all this.'

Lyra nodded, and strode over to where a slab of rock formed a natural bench.

'Come and sit,' she said. 'This will take a while.'

#

Lyra told Lee all she knew, and he guessed the rest. The story was a long and complex one, but Lyra was a good storyteller, and she laid it out as clearly as possible.

Until Lyra was eleven, she had believed herself to be an orphan. She had lived at Jordan College for as long as she could remember, not belonging to anyone in particular, but watched over by all. Mrs Lonsdale the housekeeper clothed and fed her, the scholars taught her in higgledy-piggledy fashion, the Master kept her out of trouble (that he knew about at least) and Lyra played with the younger servants and the servants' children, especially Roger, the kitchen boy who was her particular friend and confederate. Her parents had died in an airship accident when she was a baby, and somehow, she had ended up at Jordan.

Several times a year, at irregular intervals, her uncle would visit her. Lord Asriel was a proud, fierce, temperamental man and although Lyra regarded him with awe and admiration, love was not a word easily associated with Asriel. He was a scholar, but more: he was a great explorer, an adventurer, and tales of his exploits and his daring were whispered through the corridors and laboratories and Retiring Room of Jordan in tones of fear, anger and respect.

So, life went on, and if Lyra wasn't happy, she didn't know it. Until she was eleven and began having peculiar dreams.

Lyra had always been what indulgent folk termed 'wildly imaginative' and less tolerant people called a 'lying little wretch,' but these dreams were unnaturally vivid, and all of them featured wolves. Dreams of running with wolves, of playing with them, of leaping over the rooftops and down the streets and through the gardens of Oxford with wolves.

About the same time, rumours began to circulate in Oxford that wolves had left Badbury Forest and were on the prowl in the city. Most dismissed this as pure fancy – the wolves had never breached the city limits. Why would they, when there was food enough in the woods? But the rumours came to Asriel's ear somehow.

Without warning, he came to Jordan and took Lyra away. She'd thought they were going on one of his famed expeditions, but instead, he brought her here, to Badbury Forest, and the wolves' den.

It was then Lyra learned things that turned her world on its head and spun it like a top for good measure. Lord Asriel was a wolfwalker, a man who turned into a wolf as he slept. Whenever he wasn't journeying to the North, or to Byzantium or to a multitude of other places, he was living in Badbury Forest, so as to keep watch over Lyra. And he did this because he was her father, not her uncle.

Over a decade ago, Asriel had fallen in love with a woman. It had been love and lust at first glance for both of them: a wild, all-consuming destructive passion. The problem was the woman (Asriel had never told Lyra her name) was already married. So, they conducted an affair and inevitably, Lyra was the result.

It was then that Asriel made a fatal mistake. Until then, he had concealed his true nature from the woman. Habitual secrecy and, truthfully, a grain of misgiving about the woman's limitless ambition had sealed his lips. But now, with a child to consider (and there was no doubt that she was Asriel's), a child who might be a wolfwalker, he felt Lyra's mother ought to know the truth.

It was a disastrous miscalculation. Although Lyra didn't know the particulars of what transpired, she knew that her mother had tried to subjugate Lord Asriel and his powers and use them for her own ends. And that she'd had terrible plans for baby Lyra, plans involving experimentation, training and worse.

Asriel escaped. He kidnapped baby Lyra from her mother and engineered it to look as if she'd died (faking their passage on a recently capsized ship, adding her name to the list of the deceased). He took her to Jordan, invoking the principle of scholastic sanctuary. And there she'd remained…

'Let me guess,' Lee interrupted at this point. 'You turned out to be a wolfwalker.'

'I did,' Lyra nodded. 'My father knew, as soon as I started having the dreams. The first few really were dreams, but later… He'd thought I was human, you see. That was why he left me at Jordan. But he said it would be too dangerous for me to stay there as a wolfwalker.'

She lapsed into silence, scratching at the dirt with her toe. Pantalaimon turned into a rabbit and snuggled against her.

'So, after your father fetched you away?' Lee prompted.

'I been living here ever since,' Lyra mumbled. 'My father taught me about being a wolfwalker. What we can do, how to use our magic. He ent a woodsman, I lied about that cause I didn't know you.'

Lee paused, watching her lowered eyes, her slumped shoulders.

'Have you been back to Oxford since?' he asked. 'Seen your friends?'

'No,' Lyra sighed. 'I stayed away, until a few days ago. Father says it would be too dangerous. He's says we've got to stay hidden.'

'Sounds lonely,' Lee observed mildly. He was a loner by nature – hence Hester settling as a hare – but he knew it wasn't a life that suited everyone. Especially not a young girl who'd been surrounded by friends and teachers since she could toddle.

'It's not so bad,' Lyra answered defensively, looking up at Lee. 'I've got Pan – and the wolves. They play with me and keep me company.'

'And your father?' Lee queried. 'Did – does he play with you?'

'Mostly he gives me lessons,' Lyra said, pulling a face to indicate what she thought of that pastime. 'And he takes me hunting, when we're wolves.'

'Hmm,' said Lee, exchanging glances with Hester. 'And where is he now?'

Lyra gave him a sidelong glance. And then she rose and made her way over to one of the recesses in the cliff face – a small cave, really, shielded by a woven brown curtain. Lee rose and followed her.

Lyra drew aside the curtain, and they both peered in. The cave looked remarkably like the study of a respectable scholar. Books were ranged along tree roots and natural rocky shelves. A desk, covered in papers and scientific instruments – a lantern projector, a microscope, a sextant – and more diagrams and maps stuck up on the rough walls.

But Lee's attention was drawn to the rough pallet, arranged against the back wall of the cave. A man was lying on it, apparently asleep, but his stillness suggested something deeper and stronger than sleep. His features looked severe, even in repose, and a rough beard straggled over his face.

'He's been like this for nearly a week now,' Lyra said. Her insouciant air had evaporated, and she sounded like a scared, lonely young girl. 'He went out in wolf form, with his daemon. He made me stay behind – he said he had something he needed to do, but he never came back.'

'And he can't wake up?' Lee asked. Lyra shook her head.

'No, because he's not there to wake up. It's our spirits that turn into wolves. He'll sleep forever, until his spirit comes back to his human body. And that spirit will stay a wolf forever, too,' Lyra told him. Despite her grim words, her voice was steady, and Lee's admiration for her surged.

'Lyra, I hate to ask this, but how do you know he's still alive?' Lee enquired bluntly. 'What if he got hurt as a wolf?'

'He's not dead,' Lyra said, and to his relief she didn't sound upset by the suggestion. 'He's breathing. I check on him every day. If he'd been killed as a wolf, he'd die here too. No, he's alive somewhere. I just don't know where. I've waited and waited…A few days ago, I started going into town. To see if I could find him or learn summing useful. And I was hanging round Jordan, and I heard one of the porters complaining about a beast in the cellars –'

'So you broke in,' Lee finished for her.

'Yeah,' Lyra confirmed. 'I know all the ways into Jordan. I just wasn't expecting all the guards – they were never there before.'

'They're there to keep an eye on a particular scholar, I'll warrant,' Lee muttered, recalling Mrs Coulter's words about leaving guards to monitor the scholar working on the nature of the human spirit. 'Lyra, do you know a Dr Van Buskirk?'

'Yes,' Lyra nodded. 'Julian Van Buskirk. My father says he'll be a great man someday – if the Magisterium doesn't crush him.'

Lyra let the curtain fall. Lee stood upright and surveyed her.

'Lyra, I think I know what's happened to your father,' he said.

Author's Notes:

Lord Asriel - James MacAvoy

The structure of the wolf pack and the wolf behaviour in this chapter is taken from Barry Lopez's excellent book 'Of Wolves and Men.' Although first published in 1978, it's still in print today and offers a very different view of wild wolves than that of the ravening, murderous beasts that still abounds in popular culture.

Till next time, dear readers...