The next hour for Lee Scoresby and Hester was just about as unpleasant an hour as they had ever lived, including the one when they were penned down under gunfire and Hester had been clipped by a bullet and Lee had one still lodged inside him. Then adrenaline from the battle had carried them through and then they had passed out and missed the worst of the pain.
That hour had been painful and terrifying, but the kind of terrifying one might barely have the time to notice in the moment though it haunts one's dreams for years after.
The hour they spent now was almost the opposite; there was nothing to keep busy with and no way to fight and so nothing to distract them from how very horrible the present was. Lee felt exhausted to his soul; the ordeal of being made to walk with his arms bound, and the deep bruises and lacerations from the fight (and from the walk, from falling hard), and then to have his daemon touched, and pulled away…he was exhausted to his soul. And he was still a captive and still surrounded by tormentors who seemed disinclined to let him lay still and recover.
If he thought his ribs might be cracked before, he was fairly certain they were most definitely broken now.
"What's that sound?" said a voice in the dark, gleeful and hateful all at once. The 'sound' might have been Hester inadvertently shifting just a millimeter. She huddled, trembling, and trying not to. Because one of their guards had taken the Captain at his word and then some when told to beat them if Hester made a noise, and considering his violent interpretation neither were completely sure he had taken the second instruction, that he not kill them, to heart.
Lee strained his ears, not to hear Hester; he knew she was as silent as only a hare could be and was certain his tormentor was pretending to hear things as her. No, Lee was listening for anything really; he could not see and what he could smell was neither pleasant nor useful, and all he could taste was the foulness of the rag in his mouth mixed with his own blood and what he could feel was the metal encasing his wrists, holding them behind his back, and around his ankles. And cold. And pain. There was quite a lot of the latter, and just enough of the former to be unpleasant without numbing the pain.
Mostly he was listening because being hit was unpleasant but not knowing it was coming was worse.
"Did you hear the rabbit make a noise?" the voice of the less pleasant guard said, coming from yet another direction and Lee tensed. He knew what was coming, but not from where or to what part of his body.
"I didn't hear anything," answered the other guard, his voice young and trying to sound unconcerned but betraying his unease. Normally, Lee would pity him and try to search out how he might help the boy who got in over his head. Under the current circumstances, he was a bit preoccupied with worrying over people who hadn't taken up with violent abductors. Himself, mostly, and Hester, seeing as they were the ones currently abducted. But also Iorek and Lyra and Pan.
Lee had plenty of time to fret and worry and try to make some kind of plan that would protect his friends and there was nothing. He could see no way to free himself, not without help. And wasn't that humiliating. Even worse, though, he was the bait. He could be the very reason those he loved were hurt.
"I think I did hear the rabbit," said the older guard, voice very close now, which was all the warning Lee got before the fist to his stomach.
Lee gagged, doing his best to not be sick, because if he were sick with the gag in there was a good chance he'd drown in it. For a long moment, there was nothing else to think about; don't be sick and remember how to breathe. For long seconds, his diaphragm spasmed and he couldn't get a breath and he was gagging on nothing and all his body hurt by that point but it radiated from that point in his stomach where the fist had met.
Looking on the plus side, at least it wasn't his ribs again; Lee thought a few more hits there and he'd end choking on blood and his tormentor would swiftly have become his murderer. Perhaps the guard knew that too, because for a while he amused himself by aiming for just about everywhere except his upper torso.
If there was one win to be had here, it was that Lee managed to hold his silence almost as well as Hester. True, he did it by clenching on the gag as hard as he could, but he did not scream again.
"Get up, on your knees," ordered the guard, an unknown amount of torments later. They insisted on this. Lee would prefer to just let himself lie on the ground, curled up as well as he could to protect his more vulnerable places, but the guard liked him on his knees. When Lee tried to pretend to be knocked unconscious or just ignore the order, the guard would go over and shake Hester's cage until the poor hare felt almost as rough as Lee. Hester still didn't make a noise, not even then; the only reason Lee even knew what was happening was because he could feel it as sure as she felt every hit on him, and he would scrambled to his knees. His knees felt raw by that point; the ground was not soft and they had already taken a skinning during the worst of his tumbles during the walk there, but compared to everything else they weren't so bad off. It was the being made to kneel that he hated; even if they'd offered him a pillow to kneel on he'd have hated it.
Every time was a struggle; a struggle in balance, a struggle against his wounds, against pain. A struggle to do as he was told. This time was worse, because he did not actually know when he had stopped kneeling, and if that was happening then passing out likely wasn't far off. And if he passed out then he definitely would not be able to do anything to stop the things to come or help his friends.
He completed that struggle, before they could do anything to Hester, and stayed as tall and still as he could hold himself, which was not very; he was trembling too hard and his muscles too exhausted. He felt cold, colder than he thought he should, but he had lost all sense of time and maybe it was night; nights in Lapland were cold, even in the summer, and he didn't have his coat.
He waited for another hit to come in the dark. He waited for a chance to fight back. He waited.
The next hit didn't come. Instead, there was the sound of a door.
"Made a lot of noise, did the rabbit?" asked a voice as the person doing the opening stepped into the room. It was the Captain's voice.
"Wouldn't shut up," answered the older guard, then, "en't that right?"
For a moment, Lee wondered if he was being asked, which was stupid as he still had the gag. But it was the other guard, the young one, who did answer, his voice hesitating a moment.
"Yes sir, that's right," he said.
"And you didn't kill them, then? Good job, the both of you. Now, it's time. Get them ready." And he turned and left.
Lee did not know what that meant, but it did not bode well.
Outside, Iorek and Lyra had similar misgivings as they noted an increase in activity.
"Just when are we going to go get Mr. Scoresby?" Lyra asked, not for the first time.
"As soon as the time is apt," Iorek answered, just as calmly and patiently as he had answered the first time. Sometimes he would growl, deep in his throat, his keen senses taking in all they could and fitting together the pieces of the trap, like a puzzle. He never growled at Lyra, though, and Lyra could appreciate the sentiment. If girls could growl half so well, she would have been growling herself.
"Mr. Scoresby has been very quiet this last hour," Lyra remarked next, her voice mostly managing to hold back the tremble. "He hasn't screamed again…has he."
"Lee's not dead in there," Iorek said, answering the real question Lyra had not dared to ask. "And he's not dying. A dying man smells different from a live one."
"You can smell that from all the way out here?" Lyra asked, surprised.
"A bear can smell things for miles; I could have tracked them even without their footprints. The only reason I never knew they were here before was because we were moving downwind, so as not to spook the elk, and camp was behind us. The moment the wind shifted, I knew. Just as I know they are building up a trap in there, a trap meant for me."
"What kind of trap?" Lyra asked, alarmed.
"One that needs casks of oil," Iorek answered. "And I think Lee will be the bait. They want him alive for that."
But they did not need him alive; Iorek did not tell her. Iorek knew he would attack them, whether to rescue his friend…or avenge him. He also did not tell her that Lee's scent was that of a wounded animal. Had Iorek been a primitive bear, one who didn't count Lee as a friend, he might have sensed him as easy prey. He told her none of that, for although armored bears do not shelter their young, neither do they needlessly burden them. And even aside from that, Iorek did not like to think on his friend as wounded prey, and it was easier not to say it.
"But what is our plan?" Lyra demanded. "And why are we just waiting here while they set up their trap with Mr. Scoresby as bait?"
"Don't scold him, Lyra," Pan said, in what was likely meant to be just for her ears, only bears are very keen of hearing. They could not hear as well as they could smell, but their hearing was most certainly better than most human's.
"Had we rushed in, they would have had me in a net in seconds, and set it alight. Perhaps I could have fought myself free before I burned up or choked on the smoke, but they would not have left me alone to do it. They have weapons and they mean to use them. The trap was already set long before they went for Lee Scoresby. They only move now because I failed to spring it as they had hoped. Now they mean to raise my wrath until I lose all reason and storm in anyway. And once I am dead, they will come for you. And I think they mean to use your love for Lee Scoresby to keep you from running too far away for them to catch you. You won't run off on your own if you think you are leaving him to his fate, and so you will stay close, and you will be alone, and they have wolf daemons and they will find you. I do not know why they want you, but I am convinced capturing you is what this entire thing is about."
Lyra and Pan listened to this speech, pale and aghast.
"But Iorek, how do you know all that?" Lyra asked, not questioning that it was true, for she sensed it was, but wondering how he could know.
"You cannot trick a bear; I have told you this. I can smell the rope soaked in oil; fire is an old weapon used against bears, we use it ourselves, the meaning is not hard to deduce. And I could hear the leader talking from time to time. Not well, my ears are not so keen as my nose, but perhaps better than you were able. I cannot hear inside the buildings; I cannot hear Lee Scoresby, but I can hear when words are spoken outside. They know you are here and they know I am here and they want you and are expecting me."
"Then…then what are we going to do?" Lyra asked. "How are we going to save Mr. Scoresby?"
Iorek said nothing for a moment, feeling the weight of the girl's expectations and thinking, for perhaps the hundredth time, that there really was something of a bear in her spirit. She did not doubt for a moment that Iorek meant to go after Lee Scoresby, trap or no trap, even though the most sensible action would be to go far away and escape while they still could. Iorek had no doubt that the idea of simply running away had not even crossed Lyra's mind, not for a single moment, nor did she conceive that the idea might have crossed Iorek's mind.
She would be wrong. If Iorek were alone, there was not a force in the world that could make him leave Lee Scoresby to his fate, even if it meant knowingly leaping into a trap. But he was not alone. He had Lyra in his charge. And he had promised Lee that he would protect her. Protecting her best would mean taking her someplace far from those who threatened her.
Bears do not break their word, not true bears like Iorek. Neither do bears abandon their companions. Iorek felt torn in a way he rarely knew; bears know what is right and they do it, without hesitation, but now two paths were right and he was somewhere in between.
So he did not run and he did not attack, and all the while he could smell Lee and Hester, close, wounded. But he also did not simply wait. Bears do not hesitate. Bears stalk. They may appear to creep and lay low and do nothing, but all the while they are getting a feel for the terrain, for their prey, and they are preparing for the final lunge.
"I think," he said after that long moment, "We will do what they do not expect. How much do you trust me?"
"With all my being and beyond," Lyra answered without hesitation.
"I thought as much," Iorek said approvingly. "Lee is not going to like this plan. He looks on you like you are his daughter and he wants you safe above all things, but this plan will work and you will be safe, safer than you ever could be if we did it another way."
"He does?" Lyra asked, sounding shocked, and perhaps not having heard anything Iorek had said past 'he looks on you like you are his daughter'.
"Of course he does," Pan said, shocking Lyra further. "He looks after us, don't he? And he comes for us, always, when we get separated. But now we're going to come for him. En't we?"
"Sure we are," Lyra declared boldly, a determined gleam in her eye. Iorek wondered if she knew just how much she had sounded like Lee in that moment.
"Lyra Silvertongue," said Iorek, "You will need to be brave and wise a little longer and then we will be together again."
"And they will all be dead," Lyra added. A different adult might have been alarmed by her blood thirstiness. The bear approved.
"And they will all be dead," he agreed.
Which was more or less the moment Lee and Hester were dragged away from their prison to the middle of the open space. It was all stone there, except at the center, where a metal pole with shackles was waiting. That was where Lee was made to go. Hester, still in the cage, still kept an uncomfortable distance, was laid nearby. The Captain put his foot on the top, effectively making sure the hare had no chance to escape while everyone was distracted. Not that the hare could have gotten far anyway, not with Lee shackled to the pole.
Preparing Lee had involved removing the gag at last, but not the blindfold. They wanted him to have the use of his voice for what was to come, but he did not need to see. They also removed his shirt, leaving his upper torso bare. His rough treatment was clearly evident across his chest; blotches of red, purple, yellow, almost black in places, bleeding in others, scratches and bruises with hardly any unblemished skin to see. His back was somewhat less marred; there were bruises but not as bad as his front.
That was going to be remedied very soon.
Lyra and Iorek could not see this, of course, because the fence, flimsy contraption though it was, still did its job of screening what was on the other side. They could hear the commotion though, and Iorek knew by scent alone the moment his friend was dragged out.
"What is happening?" whispered Lyra.
"They mean to incite my wrath now," growled Iorek. "And they are going to succeed."
"What?" Lyra said. "Why, what are they going to do?"
Iorek did not answer. He did not need to. Lyra did not have a bear's ears, but the sounds were nearby and out of doors and they carried quite well enough.
"How many?" said a voice, not Lee's.
"Until his friends come for him," answered another. Then, after a small pause, "Or until he's dead."
There was a longer moment of silence. Then a sound, familiar and unfamiliar at the same time, of something striking against flesh, accompanied by a noise that was as much surprise as it was pain, not a scream, but close to one, and loud enough to be heard all they way where Lyra and Pan and Iorek were listening. That was Lee Scoresby's voice.
The smacking sound came again, this time without the cry, but it was too late; they had already heard and they already knew. And striking sound came a third time.
"They're hurting him" Lyra whispered, barely able to say the words she was so full of passion and anger and fear and horror all at once. "They're…they're beating him, en't they."
Iorek's response was a growl. When he did speak, the rumble was so low Lyra had trouble understanding him and Pan had to repeat his words back for her. He did have a plan. Perhaps it was even a good plan.
"I…I understand," Lyra choked out. "I can be strong enough…for…for Mr. Scoresby. I will tell such lies they won't know but the sky has turned red."
"Then go," said Iorek, "Before I lose my reason and my life."
Lyra went, alone, except for Pan, feeling very small. All the while, they could hear the meaty thuds of something hitting against someone, as though they never meant to stop.
But they would stop.
Lyra went right up to the gate to the stronghold and she knocked on the door.
"Hey!" she shouted at the top of her lungs. "Hey, I want to talk to you!"
The striking sound stopped. And the gate opened. Then it closed again, with the girl and her daemon on the other side.