lofur had noticed. He began to taunt lorek, calling him broken-hand, whimpering cub, rust-eaten, soon-to-die, and other names, all the while swinging blows at him frht a which lorek could no longer parry. lorek had to move backward, a step at a time, and to crouch low uhe rain of blows from the jeering bear-king.
Lyra was in tears. Her dear, her brave one, her fearless defender, was going to die, and she would not do him the treachery of looking away, for if he looked at her he must see her shining eyes and their love and belief, not a face hidden in cowardice or a shoulder fearfully turned away.
So she looked, but her tears kept her from seeing what was really happening, and perhaps it would not have been visible to her anyway. It certainly was not seen by lofur.
Because lorek was moving backward only to find dry footing and a firm rock to leap up from, and the useless left arm was really fresh and strong. You could not trick a bear, but, as Lyra had shown him, lofur did not want to be a bear, he wao be a man; and lorek was trig him.
At last he found what he wanted: a firm rock deep-anchored in the permafrost. He backed against it, tensing his legs and choosing his moment.
It came when lofur reared high above, bellowing his triumph, and turning his head tauntingly toward loreks apparently weak left side.
That was when lorek moved. Like a wave that has been building its strength over a thousand miles of o, and which makes little stir in the deep water, but which when it reaches the shallows rears itself up high into the sky, terrifying the shore dwellers, before crashing down on the land with irresistible power—so lorek Byrnison rose up against lofur, exploding upward from his firm footing on the dry rod slashing with a ferocious left hand at the exposed jaw of lofur Raknison.
It was a horrifying blow. It tore the lower part of his jaw off, so that it flew through the air scattering blood drops in the snow many yards away.
lofurs red tongue lolled down, dripping over his open throat. The bear-king was suddenly voiceless, biteless, helpless, lorek needed nothing more. He lunged, and then his teeth were in lofurs throat, and he shook and shook this way, that way, lifting the huge body off the ground and battering it down as if lofur were no more than a seal at the waters edge.
Then he ripped upward, and lofur Raknisons life came away in his teeth.
There was oual yet to perform. lorek sliced open the dead kings unprotected chest, peeling the fur back to expose the narrow white and red ribs like the timbers of an upturned boat. Into the rib cage lorek reached, and he plucked out lofurs heart, red and steaming, and ate it there in front of lofurs subjects.
Then there was acclamation, pandemonium, a crush of bears surging forward to pay homage to lofurs queror.
lorek Byrnisons voice rose above the clamor.
「Bears! Who is your king?」
And the cry came back, in a roar like that of all the sea-smooth pebbles in the world in an o-battering storm:
「lorek Byrnison!」
The bears knew what they must do. Every single badge and sash and et was thrown off at ond trampled ptuously underfoot, to be fotten in a moment. They were loreks bears now, and true bears, not uain semi-humans scious only of a t inferiority. They swarmed to the palad began treat bloarble from the topmost towers, rog the battlemented walls with their mighty fists until the stones came loo