Philip Pullman: Once Upong a time in the North

'Well, I'm gone do that to you, Scoresby. There's that big hoist outside the doors there with a rope on it. I'm gone play a trick with that, you bet. I'm gone play with you and that scrawny jackrabbit for a long time.'

The pool of fish oil had spread. It was close enough now for Lee to reach out and touch it, and then he saw Hester look that way too, and then at him, and then at his pistol, and he knew at once what she meant.

McConville was still talking, but Lee blanked out his voice and with infinite care reached for the pistol at his waist. Holding it on his lap, he touched a finger to the pool of oil and brought a drop to the pivot of the hammer, and another to the trigger mechanism, and another to the bearing of the cylinder. With his weakened left hand holding the barrel as firmly as he could, he turned the cylinder with his right, very slowly, and felt it loosen. He pulled back the hammer: it moved stiffly at first, and then freely. He made sure there was a cartridge in the chamber, and sat with the pistol cocked, waiting for McConville's deep grating voice to stop.

'Well, Scoresby, I'm gone start killing you now. This

is your end a-coming. It's gone be a hard one and a long one. I made that other marshal's end last a good half- hour by his pretty watch, which I took. I think I might let you stick around a mite longer'n that. Depends how much you scream.'

Lee heard the sound of a man getting to his feet and coughing slightly as if to cover a grunt of pain. So he had been hit!

And Hester pricked up her ears, tensing suddenly, as she and Lee heard another sound: the slither of a serpent body along a wooden floor, and the faint dry clicking of a rattle. McConville's daemon, impatient to get the torture started, was moving ahead of him.

And then, not six feet away at the end of the rack of barrels, the snake-head appeared - and Hester sprang, and seized it.

She gripped the daemon just behind the head, and bit down hard. Lee felt every quiver of her muscles, and clenched his teeth in sympathy with hers.

McConville uttered a great cry of rage and pain and fell to the floor behind the barrels. Unable to move, Lee watched the furious struggle between the lashing, coiling, whipping snake and the tense little form of Hester, her claws slipping as she scrabbled on the floor. There was nothing for her to get any purchase on - no good turf, no springy twigs of sage - nothing but smooth boards, and the little rabbit had only half the weight of the snake; and Lee could feel with his daemon the furious power of the twisting, writhing form of McConville's as she flung herself left, right, left, trying

Hester's teeth.

'Keep going, gal,' Lee whispered. 'Hold tight there, sweetheart...'

And she dug in, she

tightened her trembling jaw,

she scrabbled and slipped but she dug in again and tugged, and dragged, and hauled, and little by little pulled McConville's daemon away from him.

McConville's cries were hideous. He scrambled across the floor - Lee could hear his boots slipping, his fingernails scratching - his grunts and roars echoed around the warehouse till the air was full of the noise, and then helplessly he stumbled round the end of the rack of barrels, and Lee shot him.

McConville crashed backwards against the window and slid to the floor. In Hester's mouth his daemon sagged and loosened, but Hester kept on tugging, and it was easier now, and McConville sobbed, 'No - no - don't do it - goddamn bitch rabbit -'

His face was the colour of dirty paper. His mouth was a sagging red hole and his eyes were bulging.

'McConville,' said Lee, 'you shot Mike Martinez and Broadus Vinson from a hiding place, like a coward, and then you made little Jimmy Partlett fight you because he didn't want you to think he was a coward. You're a dirty piece of work, and this is the end of you.'

And he shot the man through the heart. His daemon vanished, and Hester tumbled back towards Lee, who

scooped her up and kissed her and held her close till she stopped trembling.

'You better move, Lee,' she whispered. 'You got about ten seconds before you're sitting in a pool of fish oil.'

'And now our troubles begin, Hester,' Lee muttered, struggling to pull himself upright, and just in time, too.

Gingerly he moved his left arm and found, at least, that he could. He put his pistol back in the holster and went to pick up the rifle.

Then he looked out of the window and saw the ship's crew at work covering the forward hatch, so they must have loaded the cargo. But one man lay dead on the deck, under a sheet of canvas, and nearby on the quay a crowd headed by Poliakov was being held at bay by Iorek Byrnison, whose bulk stood foursquare on the flagstones confronting them. Poliakov was addressing the crowd; Lee could hear the muscular drone of his voice, but not the words. He was trying to get them to move forward and - well, attack the schooner, Lee supposed, but the bear would have stopped a madder, braver crowd than this.

Lee could also hear the chug of the schooner's auxiliary engine, and see the exhaust smoke puffing from the pipe amidships. She was nearly ready to leave.

He made his way carefully down the stairs. On the ground floor he found a chaos of torn bundles of skins, broken spars and lengths of timber, and the great steel sheet of the door lying flat beside the entrance.

He walked out into the sunlight and made his way to the bear's side.

'Well, York Byrnison, the trouble's gone from upstairs,' he said.

The bear's head swung round to look at him, the black eyes glinting under the great iron ridge.

And then Lee's head swam and he lost his balance for a moment, but the bear's head moved in a flash and seized his coat between his teeth, and gently pulled him upright again.

And then things became confusing.

There was someone shouting from the crowd, or did it come from beyond them? Loud voices bellowing commands, anyway, and then the disciplined quick tramp-tramp-tramp of running feet in heavy boots coming along the quay. Behind him, Lee heard a splash, and then turned carefully to see the bear's helmeted head emerging from the water and moving swiftly away.

But he had to turn round again, because an angry voice was shouting, 'You! Drop your weapon! Drop it now!'

And he saw it came from the man in charge of the squad of running men in Larsen Manganese uniforms, who had arrived at the head of the crowd now and stood, rifles aimed, facing him like a firing squad. Poliakov was standing safely behind them, frowning his approval.

Lee considered that he didn't feel inclined to drop that nice rifle, and he was about to say so when another layer of confusion was added to the mix. A different voice from behind him said, 'Mr Lee Scoresby, you are under arrest.'

Cautiously, in case he fell over, Lee turned once more. The man who'd spoken was one of three; young, armed with a pistol, and in a different uniform.

'Who the hell are you?' Lee said.

'Never mind him!' yelled the Larsen Manganese leader. 'Do as I say!'

'I am Lieutenant Haugland. We are from the Customs and Revenue Board, Mr Scoresby,' said the young man calmly, 'and I repeat, you are und^r arrest. Put down your rifle.'

'Well, you see,' said Lee, 'if I do that, the Senator over there will suddenly regain his courage, and order those marionettes of his to come and take over Captain van Breda's ship. And after all me and York Byrnison went through to help him load his cargo, that seems kind of a pity. I don't know how to resolve this situation, Mr Customs Officer.'

'I will resolve it. Put your rifle down, please.'