Beowulf

by Caitlin R. Kiernan

  “What manner of son are you, worm?” asks Beowulf, and then he answers his own question. “None of mine,” he growls, and plunges his dagger into the soft, glowing spot at the base of the creature’s throat. The blade and his fist punch straight through hide and sinew and into the hollow kiln of the monster’s gullet.

  Inside Beowulf’s aching skull, the golden man screams, even as the dragon shrieks and coughs forth another gout of flame, searing most of the flesh from Beowulf’s hand and arm and turning the dagger to molten slag. This blast misses the causeway, however, and momentarily billows overhead like an impossible, burning cloud. The king of the horned hall cries out, this pain greater by far than any he has ever felt in all his life, a long life that has been filled with so much pain. His right foot slips as the dragon’s body is wracked by horrendous convulsions, and he almost falls. But Beowulf grits his teeth, tasting his own blood, and hangs on.

  “It is over,” he whispers, and the dragon’s body trembles. “Take me, and let them be.”

  The golden man’s voice has finally left his head, and Beowulf cranes his neck, gazing back over his shoulder at the causeway connecting the towers. Wealthow and Ursula are huddled together against the far balustrade. He can see that their gowns have been singed and their faces are stained with soot. They are bruised and terrified, but they are both alive, and even now Beowulf can feel the dragon’s life ebbing away.

  “By the gods, it is over,” he says again, resting his cheek against the dragon’s chest. “Die.”

  But the fyrweorm narrows its eyes and rears back again, cocking its head to one side as it prepares to send another blast of fire down upon the keep. This time, however, there is merely a labored, strangling sound from the depths of its mighty chest, and no flame erupts from out that maw. And Beowulf understands that he has punctured and destroyed some crucial part of its anatomy, some organ without which the monster cannot spark and make fire. Enraged, the dragon shrieks and hammers the air with its wings. It hisses and strikes at the causeway with only its jaws, shearing away a section of the balustrade and part of the deck, snapping off several of its fangs. Ursula screams and Wealthow hides her face, but the women remain out of the monster’s reach. Again, it strikes and snaps its jaws, but this time they close on empty air. The beast is once more losing altitude, its left wing too torn to keep it airborne any longer. It is drifting back from the causeway.

  And the golden man’s words echo in Beowulf’s mind.

  How will you hurt me, my Father? Your fingers? Your teeth? Your bare hands?

  And with the last of his strength, Beowulf forces the charred stump of his arm deeply into the beast’s torn throat, pushing it in up to his shoulder, ripping through more of the soft muscle and organ meat beneath its golden armor. The dragon bellows, and from their place on the causeway, Ursula looks up to see its amber eyes roll back in its head.

  “Let go,” sighs Beowulf, unsure if he’s speaking to the golden man or himself.

  The dragon’s chin slams down upon the deck of the causeway, the end of its snout only scant inches from the two women. It rests there for a moment, and then slips backward, its wings falling slack at its slides as the creature tumbles out of control. It seems to Beowulf that the long fall lasts almost forever, that last precious glimpse of Wealthow and Ursula before the endless descent down, down, down to the slate-gray sea crashing against the craggy rocks below the keep.

  In the reckless frenzy of its death throes and its final savage assault upon the causeway, the dragon has dislodged keystones and rent the colossal pillars supporting the bridge. The very foundations of the causeway where it joins with the native granite have been broken by the force of the beast’s attack, and though the dragon has fallen, the entire structure begins quickly to sag and collapse in upon itself. In only moments, the work of Heorot’s engineers and architects has been undone, and Wealthow and Ursula hold tight to one another as the deck begins to list. They have somehow been so fortunate as to survive the creature’s murderous and fiery onslaughts, only to find their deaths in the destruction of the bridge.

  Wealthow glances desperately toward the eastern tower, where only moments before she saw Wiglaf trying to reach them. But the fire burns even more fiercely than before, as though the masonry itself is feeding the blaze. There is no sign of Wiglaf anywhere.

  A nearby section of the causeway cracks apart suddenly, slinging bits of rock and mortar and raising a cloud of dust. Ursula screams and hides her faces in Wealthow’s arms as the bridge begins to tilt toward the sea. And the Queen of Heorot Hall holds tight to the woman her husband bedded in her stead, the one he must have come to love more than her, for what profits anyone bitterness or spite, and Wealthow waits for the end.

  “I am so sorry,” the girl sobs, but Wealthow tells her there is nothing left now to be sorry for.

  “But I took him from you.”

  “Child, you took nothing I did not first let slip away from me,” says Wealthow.

  And at that moment, the causeway cracks again, and this time a large portion of the flaming deck dividing them from the eastern tower and their escape pulls free and tumbles toward the crashing waves and jagged shingle far below. As it goes, it opens a narrow, crumbling pathway through the flames. And there is Wiglaf, still standing on the other side.

  “Get up,” Wealthow tells Ursula, all but lifting the girl to her feet, not knowing how long the path might endure or how soon until the entire structure drops away beneath them. “We have to run. We can live, but we have to run, and we have to run fast.”

  Through her tears, Ursula stares, uncertain and terrified, toward Wiglaf and the slight gap in the roaring wall of fire. “But…” Ursula begins.

  “Run, damn you,” Wealthow growls, pushing her ahead toward Wiglaf, who has begun picking his way toward them through the ruin. “Run, or I will throw you over the side myself and be done with it.”

  And then Ursula is running, with Wealthow close on her heels, the two women dashing toward deliverance as the causeway groans beneath them. But another explosion erupts from somewhere close behind them, and the deck abruptly leans away from the sea, pivoting on its columns and swaying instead in the direction of the eastern tower and Wiglaf. Wealthow loses her footing and begins sliding across the precipitously listing causeway toward a spot where the teeth of the dragon broke away the balustrade and so there’s nothing there to stop her from slipping over the edge. Ursula shouts for Wiglaf and lunges for her queen, managing to grab hold of Wealthow’s left hand. But Ursula is only strong enough to slow Wealthow’s progress toward the causeway’s shattered rim, and now both women are sliding nearer the edge.

  “Wiglaf!” Ursula cries out, digging her heels into the quavering deck.

  “Please, save yourself” Wealthow implores the girl. “It’s too late for me, but we don’t both have to die here.” And with that, Queen Wealthow wrenches her hand free of Ursula’s grasp. The girl screams, but in the last instant before Wealthow tumbles over the edge, Wiglaf catches her and straining, digging deep for the last of his strength, hauls her safely back onto the deck.

  “What you ladies say we get the hell out of here?” he moans, and then the Geat leads them both to the eastern towers. Only moments after they have gained that harborage, the swaying causeway again changes its course, pulling free of the tower wall in a final, decisive lurch before plummeting toward the sea. It leaves behind only a wide gulf of smoky air to mark the space between the spires of Heorot.

  Beowulf comes to on a small patch of sand in the lee of a boulder, awakened by the chill of the icy waves. For a second, it seems he lies atop the fallen dragon, but then as salt water and foam retreat, he sees that he lies beside the golden man from the merewife’s cave. A terrible wound extends from the man’s throat all the way down his chest to his belly. His eyelids flutter, and then he opens them and stares up at the winter clouds.

  “Father?” he coughs. “Are you here? I can’t see you.”

  “I’m here,”
Beowulf replies weakly. He ignores the pain that seems to radiate from every part of his body and drags himself closer, cradling his son’s head in the crook of his good arm “I’m sorry…”

  “Are we dead?” the golden man asks, and blood leaks from his lips.

  “Almost,” Beowulf replies, before another wave rushes forward and crashes over them both. Beowulf gasps at the cold, and when the sea recedes again, he is alone on the sand. The golden man is gone, returned to his mother. The King of the Ring-Danes lies back down on the beach, watching the clouds passing by overhead, dimly aware that he has begun to cry, but his tears seem of little consequence here beside the resounding ocean.

  I will lie here just a little longer, thinks Beowulf, and then he hears footsteps, the crunch of boots on the pebble-strewn sand. He turns his head, and Wiglaf is walking toward him across the beach.

  “You lucky bastard,” mutters Beowulf.

  Wiglaf kneels next to him, inspecting the cauterized stump of his right arm.

  “I told you we were too old to be heroes,” he says. “Let me get you to a healer.”

  “No,” Beowulf tells him, and shakes his head. “Not this time, old friend.”

  “You’re Beowulf, son of Ecgtheow,” Wiglaf says. “The scops sing your deeds in all the lands of the world. No way a little thing like this is going to finish you off. That’s not how this story will end.”

  “No,” Beowulf tells him again. “I’m done, my Wiglaf. And it is not so bad an ending. It will be a fine enough tale for Gladsheim.”

  “Aye,” replies Wiglaf, sitting down and brushing wet hair away from Beowulf’s blood-streaked face. “It will make a fine tale for Odin’s hall, but not this day, my lord. I have a fresh, strong horse, there, just beyond the rocks.”

  Beowulf smiles for Wiglaf and closes his eyes, listening to the waves and to something he hears woven in between the waves. It might be the voice of a woman singing, the most beautiful voice he has ever heard.

  “Do you hear her?” he asks Wiglaf.

  “I hear nothing my lord, but the sea and the wind and the gulls.”

  “The song, Wiglaf,” says Beowulf. “It’s Grendel’s mother, the merewife…my son’s mother…my…” but he trails off then, distracted by the pain and uncertain what word he was going to say next, whether it might have been lover or mother, foe or destiny.

  He opens his eyes again, for now the song has grown so loud he does not have to try so hard to pick it free of the noise of the sea. Wiglaf is gazing down at him, and Beowulf has never seen Wiglaf look so frightened.

  “No, lord. Don’t say such things. You slew Grendel’s mother. When we were yet young men. It’s in the saga—”

  “Then the saga is a lie,” says Beowulf, raising his voice, angry and almost shouting, and he feels something pulling loose inside his chest. “A lie,” he says again. “Wiglaf, you know it was a lie. You always knew.”

  Wiglaf does not say a word, and Beowulf shuts his eyes again, wanting only to listen to the song flowing up from the sea.

  “And it is too late for lies,” he whispers. “Too late…”

  A wave rushes up the shore, soaking Wiglaf, and when he looks back down at Beowulf’s pale face, Wiglaf realizes that he’s alone on the beach. King Beowulf is dead.

  Epilogue

  The Passing of Beowulf

  At the center of the world stands the ash Yggdrasil, the greatest and best of all trees, and below the roots of Yggdrasil dwell the three maidens—the Norns—who work always, busy at their looms, spinning and shaping the lives of every man and every woman, weaving what must be from chaos and infinite possibility. Even the gods in Ásgard are only threads in the handiwork of the Norns, and even they, like mortal men and the giants, may not glimpse the threads of their lives or know the judgment of those nimble, tireless fingers. The length of each thread is known only to these three maidens, there below the foundations of the World Ash. And so it was with Beowulf, who sought always the glory and the brave death that must be sought out by those who wish to enter Odin’s hall and fight alongside the gods in the final battle when Ragnarök comes and the children of Loki Skywalker and Shape-Changer are again loosed upon the cosmos. At the moment of his birth, the Norns had already woven the fate of Beowulf, and in all his struggles and on down to the day of his death, he has only ever followed the course of that thread.

  Such are the thoughts of the new Lord of the Danes on this winter day, the day of Beowulf’s burial. King Wiglaf, son of Weohstan, the son of a Geatish fishwife, stands alone and apart from all the others who have come to bid the old king fare well. Today he wears the golden crown so recently worn by Beowulf and by King Hrothgar before him, by the line of Hrothgar’s house all the way back to Scyld Sheafson. From his place upon the rocks above the edge of the sea, Wiglaf looks out at the whitecapped waves and setting sun and the funeral ship. It is the same dragon-prowed ship that he and Beowulf and the other Geats sailed across the stormy waters of Jótlandshaf to reach the shores of a demon-haunted land thirty long years ago, and now it will bear Beowulf away on this, his final journey from the walls of Midgard across the span of the Bilröst Bridge.

  So many have come—the survivors of the worm’s attack on Heorot and also outlanders from all the four corners of the kingdom of the Ring-Danes. They have gathered upon the rugged shore, silent or whispering among themselves. A young scop stands on the sea cliff not far away from Wiglaf, and his voice is high and clear and drifts out over the dusk-stained beach.

  Across the whale’s-road he came

  And made our land his hearth and home…

  Ten strong thanes take their places, five on either side of the funeral ship. The masts have been rigged full sail, and the evening wind whips and billows in the shrouds. Fourteen of the finest iron battle-shields ever made line both the starboard and larboard wales, and the burial vessel has been heaped with treasure, gold and silver and bronze, and with swords and axes and bows, with helmets and bright mail shirts. All these precious things Beowulf had asked be buried with him, that he might be properly prepared to ride out upon the wide fields of Idavoll. His oaken bier rises from the center of the hoard, and Beowulf lies there, dressed in his best furs and armor.

  The thanes strain and heave and finally push the ship down the sand and into the icy surf. At once it is caught in a current that will carry it away from shore by way of a magnificent sea arch, an ancient granite vault carved by wind and rain and the sea herself. There is a company of thanes posted high upon the crest of the towering arch, tending the immense cedar bonfire built there.

  Wiglaf takes a deep breath of the cold, salty air, silently saying his good-byes, and watches as the wind and the current ferry the ship beneath the arch of stone. The scop’s voice rises, nearing the end of his song.

  So much blood where so many have died

  Washed ashore on a crimson tide.

  Just as now there was no mercy then.

  Dogs of war gnawed the bones of men.

  Brave and strong as they fell in the fight,

  Feeding Death’s endless appetite.

  Only one with the heart of a king

  Set them free. It’s of him we sing.

  Wiglaf catches sight of the thin Christian priest in his red robes, lurking near the queen and bearing the standard of Christ Jesus, but the Irishman has no formal role in these proceedings. These are the old ways, already fading from the land as a strange new religion takes hold, but they were the ways of Beowulf, and the ways of King Wiglaf, as well, and so will be honored and observed on this day.

  Queen Wealthow stands hand in hand with Ursula, and Wiglaf hopes that together they may find some solace from their grief and horror. Wealthow will remain the Lady of Heorot, the Scylding Queen, though Wiglaf will respect her wishes and not ask her to be his wife.

  The funeral ship sails beneath the arch, and as it exits the far side and makes for the open sea, the thanes tending the pyre use long poles to force it over the cliff. A brilliant firefall of
glowing embers and flaming brands spills down from the rocks and rains across the masts and the deck of the dragon-prowed ship. In only a moment more, the entire ship is burning.

  The scop’s song ends, and for a moment Wiglaf listens to the hungry roar of the flames, the waves and wind, the sad and gentle murmur from the crowd. The sun’s chariot has reached the horizon, and it seems to Wiglaf like an enormous crimson eye gazing out across the sea toward the burning ship and the mourners lining the shore. The burning sails of the funeral ship are framed in stark silhouette against that blazing eye. And finally King Wiglaf speaks, calling out loud to be heard.

  “He was the bravest of us. The prince of all warriors. His name will live forever. He—” But then the lump in Wiglaf’s throat is too painful to say any more, and he turns away so no one will see the tears on his cheeks.

  Now it is Wealthow’s turn to speak, and she does so despite her own tears.

  “His song,” says the queen, “shall be sung forever. As long as the world endures, the tales of his brave deeds shall be told.”

  And then there is only the wind and the surf once again, and Beowulf’s funeral ship has been carried out into the open water. Slowly, the mourners begin to turn away, filing along the road winding up through the cliffs to the keep. Wiglaf watches Wealthow and Ursula go, but he remains behind, determined to stand vigil as long as the ship floats, as long as it burns. His mind drifts back to a day thirty years before, he and Beowulf standing together on the listing deck in a howling, storm-wracked sea.

  The sea is my mother! declared a grinning Beowulf. She spat me up years ago and will never take me back into her murky womb!

  Then Wiglaf hears something on the wind, a wordless keening, and he peers out across the sea, seeking the source of the sound. As he stares at the sea, bloodied now by the setting sun and the flames of the funeral ship, the keening begins to take another shape, becoming a beautiful song, a song more exquisite than any that has ever reached his ears or that he has ever before thought possible.