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In the end, Asriel could not have chosen a better spot, Serafina noted with satisfaction as the first witches started to arrive. They had to make shelters of their own, but it was a perfect place to rally and gather - no one could come here easily, nor by accident. He surely had a determined daughter who had made it this far to find him.
Even those sent by the magisterium had not yet made it. Assuming they ever would, but she could not sense their presence in the air. Maybe the Ice Bears had made them another service and simply stepped on them. She did not even care if it would have been by accident or with intent.
Greeting her fellow witches as they arrived, she smiled at the needless errands of Ariels lone servant. The master of the house had not reacted at all to spotting an Ice Bear in his hallway (until Lyra had stepped up the stairs and Asriel promtly caught her, keeping his body between his daughter and the bear, anyway) but the servant was still terrified days later.
The Gyptians were the next to arrive, and at the very last, after all other fractions, the Ice Bears - alerted by Lee Scoresby - came to follow their king into battle. These locals came late, leaving all the planning to their allies and their king, either preferring it this way or just knowing where their strength lay.
As the adults planned, Lyra did what she could, reading her golden compass for hours, telling her father and her friends everything she could. Somewhat unusually for her, she accepted the gentle words of the Gyptian king as he kindly explained to her that protecting her on the battlefield would inevitably make them weaker, as they could not risk any harm coming to her, and so she actually never tried to argue that she ought to be there. She had hit Roger when he had dared suggest that this was somewhat ladylike, and a laughing (and honestly very proud) Lord Asriel had had to come to his rescue.
Lord Ariel had come to take a leading role, maybe naturally, as he not only knew the local terrain best -besides the bears- but also did not have a fraction of his own to lead within their forces. It was natural to decide that Serafina should lead the witches, the king of Gypsies his own people -individual clans lead by their own clan leaders- and Iorek the Ice Bears, while Lee Scoresby had volunteered to back the witches up in the air. And so, coordinating the different fractions fell of the capable shoulders of Lyra's father.