Caitlin Kiernan - Beowulf

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.