The dragon shrieks and whirls back toward the trestle a fourth time, banking so abruptly and with such force that Beowulf is almost thrown off its back. It opens its mouth wide and vomits an inferno across the timber bridge. The same thanes who only moments before had begged Beowulf to take cover with them are engulfed in fire, as are the two wagons. For some, death is instantaneous, but others somehow manage to rise and stagger a little ways through the flames before collapsing. Three or four men nearest either end of the bridge drop and roll in the snow banked high there, but this is no earthly fire that can be extinguished with melted snow.
Satisfied with the carnage, the dragon turns away from the blazing bridge, spying a ragtag troop of thanes retreating to the east along the cliff’s crumbling edge. Once more, the fading day is rent by the monster’s hideous shrieks, a sound to shame even the mighty cries of Odin Allfather’s ravens. It folds its wings against its ribs and drops from the sky, falling upon the hapless men. Some are crushed beneath its belly and the living bulwark of its chest, and others are impaled upon talons and snatched up in those jaws and flung screaming into the gorge.
When every one of the thanes is dead, the dragon looks back at Beowulf again with that same smirking grimace as before. But now Beowulf can hear the golden man’s voice, even though no voice comes from that slavering maw.
You see? it asks. You see how easily men die? You see how none may stand against me, Father?
“I will have your lizard’s head on a spike!” snarls Beowulf, and his head is filled with the golden man’s laughter.
Will you, Father? Will you do that? No, I think not.
And then the dragon is airborne again, pitching and rolling in an attempt to dislodge Beowulf. But the Geat king digs his strong fingers deep into the grooves between bony plates and scales and holds on.
Wiglaf has ridden hard from the edge of the forest and across the moors, but it is no small distance, and by the time he reaches the gorge leading back to Heorot, the bridge is ablaze, and the air reeks of burning human flesh. He yanks back on the reins, and his horse rears and kicks. To Wiglaf’s left, the ridge is scattered with the bodies of thanes who have simply been pulverized or torn asunder. The stone is smeared with blood and gore, and he can see where the monster’s talons gouged deep grooves into the rock itself. He spares a quick glance at the heavens, and there’s the dragon, maybe a hundred feet overhead. And there’s King Beowulf, clinging to its back.
“Well,” Wiglaf says to the horse, “at least it’ll make a fine tale…if either of us lives to tell it,” and he wraps the reins tightly in his hands. He starts to urge the horse forward, but just then there’s a low rumble from the bridge, a loud crack, and one side of the burning structure breaks apart and tumbles into the gorge. Only a narrow section of the deck remains, three feet wide at most. And all of it is on fire, the flames rising above the shattered bridge to form a whirlwind and a twisting pillar of black smoke and red-orange cinders.
Wiglaf takes a deep breath, then spurs his horse forward and together they dash through the flames and out across the remains of the bridge, even as more planks pull free and fall away behind them. Squinting through the heat and blinding glare, Wiglaf thinks he’s made it, that in only another second he will have gained the far side and Heorot. But the deck in front of him suddenly sags and collapses, plummeting into the gorge. He kicks the horse, driving his heels hard into its ribs. The terrified animal screams and leaps for the rocky edge of the gorge, carrying Wiglaf up and out of the flames.
Only just barely does the horse clear the chasm, landing at such an awkward angle and with such force that the animal’s legs buckle beneath it and its rider is thrown. Wiglaf slides from his saddle, tumbling ass over tit, and comes down hard on the stones sticky with mud and ash. There is a terrible, uncertain instant, then, as the horse’s hooves scrabble desperately at the slick rocks for purchase, and Wiglaf realizes that it’s off balance and slipping backward toward the gorge. But the son of Weohstan still holds the reins wrapped tightly in his hands, and with all his might he pulls upon them.
“Oh no you don’t, hross,” Wiglaf grimaces, as he strains and the leather straps begin to slice through his gloves; the soles of his boots skid across the muck, dragging him forward. “If I have to go chasing after dragons, than so do you!” The horse slips another inch toward a long fall and certain death, before it neighs and gives a mighty kick with its hindquarters. Wiglaf feels the reins go slack as the beast at last finds its footing, and soon his feet are once again in the stirrups and the horse is galloping along the crooked road toward Heorot.
After its attack on the bridge, the dragon soars back out over the moorlands. Beowulf has succeeded in pulling himself forward onto the creature’s spiny neck, and he lies there flat against its hide, contemplating his next move. The dragon twists its head madly from side to side, straining to see him, but Beowulf has found a blind spot.
“Don’t worry,” he says. “I’m still here. You haven’t lost me yet.”
Surely, Father, you cannot hope to win this battle, the golden man says, speaking from somewhere inside Beowulf’s skull. Here is the glorious warrior’s death you have always wanted.
“You will kill no more of my people.”
I will do ever as I please, the dragon replies, the dragon and the golden man, two faces and one voice for the same nightmare. And now the dragon is banking sharply once again, turning back toward Heorot.
“It was no accident Unferth’s slave found your hoard and returned with the horn,” says Beowulf, drawing his long dagger from its leather sheath.
There are no accidents, answers the golden man. The skein was woven long ago, Father. We only move like spiders along its threads.
Lying flat against the dragon’s spine, Beowulf can almost reach down to that soft, glowing spot on the underside of its throat, that one fortunate chink in its otherwise-impenetrable armor. He grips the dagger and stretches his arm as far as he may. Only another few inches and he could easily plunge the blade into the unprotected patch of skin.
What do you think you’re doing, Father?
“Something that someone should have done long ago,” Beowulf replies, and the dragon ripples the muscles along its neck. The sudden, violent movement almost throws Beowulf off, almost causes him to drop the dagger as he struggles for a better purchase on the beast’s knobby spine.
Look, Father. There’s one of your pretty women now.
Beowulf raises his head, his eyes watering from the wind, but he sees that they’ve almost reached the keep, and he also sees Ursula standing alone on the causeway connecting the two spires. Already they have come so close that Beowulf can see the terror in her wide eyes.
She will die quickly, the golden man says, and the dragon dives for the causeway. The wind screams through its wings, and Beowulf imagines that it is Ursula screaming.
“Run!” he shouts at the girl, but she does not move, either because she cannot hear him or because she is too paralyzed with fear.
Again, the dragon’s mouth gapes open very, very wide, its jaws distending and unhinging like those of some titanic adder. A sickening gurgle rises from someplace deep in its chest, and the monster spews forth a seething ball of fire. In his mind, Beowulf hears the golden man laughing triumphantly, and he can only watch helplessly as the deadly missile roars toward Ursula. But then he realizes that Queen Wealthow is running across the causeway toward her, and in the last moments before the dragon’s breath strikes the keep, Wealthow knocks the girl aside, and both women roll out of harm’s way. The flame splatters across slate and mortar, and as the dragon sails by between the towers, Beowulf sees Wealthow hauling Ursula to her feet before they run for the safety of the eastern tower.
Cheated of its kill, the enraged dragon bellows, and the golden man screams inside Beowulf’s head. Immediately, it wheels back for another assault upon the women.
Beowulf can only hope that Ursula and Wealthow have had time to find shelter somewhere deep within
the tower’s thick stone walls. Holding tight to one of the spikes rising from the dragon’s neck, Beowulf tries again to reach down and under its throat to plunge the dagger into the soft spot there, but it remains just out of reach.
If only your arm were a little longer, the golden man laughs. They cannot escape me, Father. I will pull the castle down to its very foundations if need be, but I will have them, and I will have them now. I will taste their blood upon my tongue.
“You will taste nothing this day, worm, but the sting of my blade,” Beowulf growls, “and that is the last thing you will ever taste.”
The dragon snarls, gnashing its rows of yellowed teeth, each almost as long as a grown man’s forearm. It flares its cavernous nostrils and two greasy, fetid plumes of smoke stream back into Beowulf’s face.
By the time Wiglaf finds himself once more before the gates of Heorot, the causeway far above him is shrouded all in flame. He guides his horse as quickly as he may through the blasted outer defenses and then onward, through the desolation where once the village and Hrothgar’s mead hall stood. Everywhere are the corpses of the fallen, lying where the dragon’s breath struck them down. But few are anything more than the roughest charcoal husks, only dimly suggesting the forms of vanished men and women, children and livestock. Here and there, blue-white tongues of flame still lick hungrily from the blackened, cratered earth. The stench is almost beyond bearing, and repeatedly Wiglaf’s horse tries to bolt, but he holds firmly to the reins and urges the terrified animal on until they have gained the keep. Above him, the causeway is in flame and the golden monster from Weormgræf seems to fill half the winter sky.
“Open these damned gates, you fools!” Wiglaf shouts as a handful of men struggle with the damaged mechanism meant to raise and lower the heavy iron portcullis grille. Beowulf ordered it closed behind them when he and Wiglaf left for the tarn many hours before, and the heat has since all but fused certain of the gears and counterweights. When the thanes have managed to raise it a foot or so, Wiglaf slides off his horse and scrambles beneath the metal pickets. Getting to his feet, he pauses again to stare up at the horror looming bright above the bailey.
One of the thanes, a man named Halli, rushes to Wiglaf’s side. “The refugees have all been moved into the castle,” he says. “Most of the men have also sought shelter, but…” and then Halli trails off and glances up toward the flaming causeway.
“But what?” asks Wiglaf, unable to look away from the dragon.
“My Lord, I am told the queen is up there,” replies Halli and points toward the bridge between the towers. And an icy fist clenches Wiglaf’s guts as the dragon releases another gout of fire.
“Get that bloody gate open and get my horse inside,” he barks at Halli, then draws his sword and dashes across the courtyard toward the entrance to the east tower. Inside, he takes the steps two and three at a time, his heart slamming like Thor’s own hammer inside his chest.
“Faster!” cries Wealthow, all but dragging her husband’s lover toward the sanctuary of the keep’s eastward tower. Behind them, the causeway has been completely swallowed by flame, and beneath her feet the bridge shudders ominously, as though the structure has sustained some mortal injury and might come apart at any moment, spilling them both to their deaths in the bailey far below. She does not dare look to see if the dragon is coming back. She already knows that it is, for Wealthow can hear the thunderous beating of its wings growing louder.
“But it’s going to kill him,” Ursula says breathlessly, trying to pull her hand free of Wealthow’s grip.
“In all likelihood,” replies the queen. “But that doesn’t mean we have to die as well. Now shut up and run.”
From his perch upon the dragon’s neck, Beowulf can plainly see that there will not be sufficient time for the two women to gain the tower’s entryway before the dragon is upon them once again, before they are within range of its fiery exhalations. He makes another futile attempt to reach around to the soft spot on the creature’s underside. But his arm is simply too short, the dragon’s neck too large around. Desperate, Beowulf glances over his shoulder at the great wings, fleshy membranes stretched taut between struts of bone, and to his eyes there does not appear to be any armor protecting them. Indeed, they are thin enough as to be translucent, and he can even make out the fine pattern of veins beneath the skin.
Shall I kiss them for you? the golden man whispers from somewhere inside Beowulf’s head. Shall I take them one at a time, or the both together?
Beowulf stands up, letting the wind force him backward along the monster’s spine until he is past its shoulder blades and come even with those membranous wings. Perhaps, he thinks, Old Hrothgar was wrong. Perhaps there is more than one way to hurt the bastards. And he dives for the right wing, plunging the dagger’s blade into and through the tough but not inviolable flesh. The dragon shrieks in anger and surprise and unexpected pain. With one hand, Beowulf holds tight to the leading edge of the wing, and with the other he slices a long gash from front to back. Immediately, black blood seeps from the wound, and the air pressing from below rushes up through the wound, tearing it wider still.
“Does it hurt, worm?” Beowulf mutters, knowing now that he does not need to raise his voice to be heard by the dragon. There is no reply but for its shrill cry, and Beowulf pulls the dagger free and drives it in a second time, sawing another long slash in the wing, this one running parallel to the first. The monster tilts suddenly to the left, losing altitude and control, going into a spin as it struggles to stay aloft. Frantically, it flaps the damaged left wing, struggling to regain control and finally shakes Beowulf loose, tossing him high into the air. For several seconds, the King of the Ring-Danes is falling, watching as the dragon drops away below him, the creature rolling over and over again as the earth rushes up to meet them.
So, at last, this is how I shall die, thinks Beowulf, more amused than frightened of the end, much too tired and too relieved that Wealthow and Ursula have been spared to feel any fear at the thought of so unlikely a death as toppling from the back of a dragon.
But then, as the monster pitches forward and rolls completely over onto its back, it spreads its wings wide and the death spiral abruptly ends. Once more, the dragon is gliding, and a second later, Beowulf catches up, slamming hard into the low keel of its girded breastbone. Though stunned and gasping, the breath knocked from his lungs, he succeeds in digging his fingertips and the toes of his boots firmly between the armor scutes before the dragon rolls over again and rights itself.
Nice try, Father, the monster laughs bitterly, flapping hard and favoring its right wing now. It has begun a slow, steep climb, so that Beowulf finds himself standing upright, watching as they rise toward the causeway. But not enough, the golden man says. Never quite enough.
On the causeway, Wealthow has stopped running, certain for a moment that Beowulf has brought the dragon down, and she rushes to the balustrade and looks over the edge, expecting to see them both lying dead and broken on the flagstones below. Instead, she’s greeted by the spiteful amber glare of the creature’s roasting eyes staring up at her and by the sight of Beowulf clinging to its chest. The dragon flaps its wings again, and now it has risen level with the causeway, its eyes still fixed upon Wealthow, and it rears back and opens its jaws wide. Wealthow feels its breath on her, like a sulfurous, carrion wind blowing off some infernal battlefield.
“Run!” shouts Beowulf, but now she knows how the girl must have felt, unable to move or even look away from the awful grandeur of the thing. She is dimly aware of Ursula tugging hard at the sleeve of her gown.
“My queen,” Ursula says, though her voice seems to come from someplace very distant, two words spoken from a half-forgotten dream or from the borders of a land beyond the walls of Midgard.
The dragon roars, its serpentine throat distending, filling up with flame, and the patch of skin just above Beowulf’s head glows bright as a midsummer sun. And then Ursula is screaming and shoving Wealthow aside, both of
them falling to the deck and rolling away as the air around them fills with fire.
It seems to Wiglaf that he spends at least a small eternity ascending the spiral stairwell, and when he has finally gained the uppermost level of the tower, a fierce burning pain rages within his chest as though the dragon has somehow found its way inside him, and Wiglaf is dizzy and nauseous and gasping for breath. Worse still, the landing and alcove at the top of the stairs is filled with smoke and the stench of the dragon’s flame. He covers his mouth and nose with one arm and squints through the gloom with stinging, watering eyes, but sees at once that the causeway beyond is wreathed in flames. Even if Wealthow yet lives, there is no hope remaining that he may now reach her, for it seems the very furnaces of the fire giants, the forges of all Muspéllsheim, have been placed outside the tower. And yet he does not turn back, struggling to find some path through the flames and searing heat. And finally he is rewarded with a fleeting glimpse of the queen and also of his King’s mistress, the woman Ursula. But once again the heat drives him back from the burning causeway, and his lungs fill with choking fumes as the tower begins to sway and shudder all around him.
“Twice now you’ve missed them,” says Beowulf. “What kind of dragon is it cannot even kill two women caught out in the open?”
The fireball spilled from the creature’s maw and surged across the causeway’s span, but not before Ursula had pushed Wealthow out of the path of the blast, not before they were both safely out of range. Now, two pillars of flame spurt from the causeway, and his mistress and his queen are both trapped there between them. The dragon beats its wings, already preparing to unleash another attack, and this time there is nowhere left for the women to run.
Beowulf Page 24
