The land of the Danes ends here, at this great wedge of granite cliffs jutting out high above the freezing sea. The foam of icy waves lashes the cruel shingle, narrow beaches of ragged bedrock and fallen boulders, polished cobbles and the stingy strands of ice-and snow-scabbed sand. This is no fit place for men, these barren, wind-scoured shores in this hungry, sun-shunned time of the year. By day, there are few enough wild things—only seals and walrus and the beached and rotting carcass of a whale, only the gulls and eagles soaring against the mottled, leaden sky. During the long nights, the shore becomes an even more forsaken and forbidding realm, unlit but for the furtive glimpses of the moon’s single pale eye as it slips in and out of the clouds and fog.
But even here there is refuge. Perched like a beacon shining out to all those lost and wandering in the cold stands the tower of the Scylding king Hrothgar, son of Healfdene, grandson of Beow, great-grandson of Shield Sheafson. The tower throws specks of warm yellow against the gloom, and tonight, in the shadow of the tower, there is a celebration, revelry even on an evening so bleak as this.
Within the sturdy walls of the king’s new mead hall, which he has named Heorot, the hall of harts, his thanes and their ladies have assembled. The fires burn bright beneath thatch and timber, driving back the chill and filling the air with delicious cooking smells and the comforting aroma of woodsmoke. Here, high above the reach of the angry sea, the king has at last made good his promise, the gift of this mighty hall to his loyal subjects. In all the lands of the Northmen, there is no other to equal its size and grandeur, and on this night it is awash with drunken laughter and the clatter of plates and knives, the rise and fall of a hundred voices speaking all at once, not so very different from the rise and fall of the sea outside, except there is no ice to be found here anywhere, and one might only drown in the endless cups of mead. Above the wide fire pits, pigs and deer, rabbit and geese roast on iron spits, and the flames leap and dance, throwing dizzying shadows across the walls and laughing faces and the massive oak timbers carved with scenes of warfare and the hunt, with the graven images of gods and monsters.
“Have I not kept my oath?” howls fat King Hrothgar from the alcove set into the farther end of the long hall. He is an old man, and his battle days are behind him now, his long beard and the braids in his hair gone white as the winter snow. Wrapped only in a bedsheet, he rises slowly from the cradle of his throne, moving as quickly as age and his considerable girth will permit. “One year ago…I, Hrothgar, your king, swore that we would soon celebrate our victories in a new hall, a hall both mighty and beautiful. Now, you tell me, have I not kept my oath?”
Momentarily distracted from their drink, from their feasting and happy debaucheries, the king’s men raise their cups and raise their voices, too, drunkenly cheering on old Hrothgar, and never mind that only a handful among them are sober enough to know why they are cheering. At the sound of their voices, Hrothgar grins drunkenly and rubs at his belly, then turns to gaze down at his queen, the beautiful lady Wealthow. Though hardly more than a child, this violet-eyed girl adorned in gold and furs and glittering jewels, Wealthow is neither burdened with nor blinded by childish illusions about her husband’s fidelity. She knows, for example, of the two giggling maidens whom he bedded this very night, farm girls or perhaps daughters of his own warriors, with whom the king was still occupied when four thanes came to bear him from his bedchamber out into the crowded hall. Hrothgar has never made the least effort to hide his whores and mistresses, so she has never seen the point in pretending not to see them.
“Ah, mead!” he grunts, and grabs the gilded drinking horn from the queen’s hands. “Thank you, my lovely Wealthow!” She glares up at him, though Hrothgar has already turned away, raising the horn to his lips, spilling mead down his chin and into the tangle of his beard.
The drinking horn is a breathtaking thing, and she has often spoken aloud of her wonder of it. Surely, it was made either in remote and elder days, when such fine craftsmanship was not uncommon to this land, or it was fashioned in some distant kingdom by a people who’d not yet forgotten that artistry. It is a mystery and a marvelous sight, this relic rescued from a dragon’s hoard; even clutched in the meaty hands of a man so crude as her husband, the drinking horn does not cease to please her eyes. The finest gold etched with strange runes the likes of which she’s never seen before, and there are two clawed feet mounted on one side so that the horn may be set down without tipping over and spilling. For the handle, there’s a winged dragon, also of wrought gold, with a single perfect ruby set into its throat. Horns and fangs and the jagged trace of its sinuous, razor spine, a terrible worm summoned from some forgotten tale, or perhaps the artisan meant this dragon to recall the serpent Nidhögg Rootnibbler, who lies coiled in the darkness at the base of the World Ash.
Hrothgar belches, wipes at his mouth, then raises the empty horn as though to toast all those assembled before him. “And in this hall,” he bellows, “we shall divide the spoils of our conquests, all the gold and the treasure. This shall ever be a place of merrymaking and of joy and fornication…from now until the end of time. I name this hall Heorot!”
And again the thanes and their women and everyone else in the hall cheer, and Hrothgar turns once more to face Wealthow. Droplets of mead cling to his mustache and beard like some strange amber dew.
“Let’s hand out some treasure, shall we, my beauty?”
Wealthow shrugs and keeps her seat, as the king dips one hand into a wooden chest that has been placed on the dais between their thrones. It is filled almost to overflowing with gold and silver, with coins minted in a dozen foreign lands and jewel-encrusted brooches. The king tosses a handful out into the waiting crowd. Some of it is snatched directly from the air, and other pieces rain down noisily upon tabletops and dirt floors, prompting a greedy, reckless scramble.
Now the king selects a single gold torque from the chest and holds it above his head, and again the crowd cheers. But this time the king shakes his head and holds the torque still higher.
“No, no, this one is not for you lot. This is for Unferth, my wisest man, unrivaled violator of virgins and boldest of all brave brawlers—where the fuck are you, Unferth, you weasel-faced bastard! Unferth—”
Across the long hall, at the edge of a deep pit dug directly into the floor, so that men will not have to brave the cold wind and risk frostbite just to take a piss, Unferth is busy relieving himself and arguing with another of the king’s advisors, Aesher. Unferth hasn’t yet heard Hrothgar calling out his name, the old man’s voice diminished by the endless clatter and din of the hall, and he stares into the dark pit, a great soggy mouth opening wide to drink its own share of mead, once the thanes have done with it. There is a hardness about this man, something grim and bitter in his gaunt face and braids as black as raven feathers, something calculating in the dull glint of his green eyes.
“Do not be so quick to laugh,” he says to Aesher. “I’m telling you, we have to start taking this matter seriously. I’ve heard the believers now extend from Rome all the way north to the land of the Franks.”
Aesher scowls and stares down at the yellow stream of his own urine. “Well, then answer me this. Who do you think would win a knife fight, Odin or this Christ Jesus?”
“Unferth!” Hrothgar roars again, and this time Unferth does hear him. “Oh, what now?” he sighs. “Can I not even be left in peace long enough to piss?”
Aesher shakes his head and snickers. “Best hurry it up,” he says, laughing. “You’ll not want to keep him waiting. What is a man’s full bladder when placed alongside the will of his king?”
“Unferth, bastard son of that bastard Ecglaf! Where are you, you ungrateful lout!?”
Unferth hastily tucks himself back into his breeches, then turns reluctantly to push his way through the drunken mob. Some of them step aside to let him pass, while others do not even seem to notice him. But soon Unferth has reached the edge of the king’s dais, and he forces a smile onto his face and raises his hand so that Hrothgar will see him standing there.
“I’m here, my king!” he says, and Hrothgar, catching sight of him, grins even wider and leans down, placing the golden torque about Unferth’s thin neck.
“You are too kind, my liege. Your generosity—”
“No, no, no. It’s nothing less than you deserve, nothing less, good and faithful Unferth,” and then Hrothgar gazes out upon his subjects once again. And once again an enthusiastic cheer rises from the crowd. The king’s herald, Wulfgar, steps forward from the shadows of the throne to lead the drunken thanes and their women in a familiar chant, and soon enough most of the hall has joined him. Warriors bang their fists and cups against tabletops or leap onto the tables and stomp their feet as Heorot rings out with song:
Hrothgar, Hrothgar!
Hrothgar, Hrothgar!
He faced the demon dragon
When other men would freeze.
And then my lords,
He took his sword
And brought it to its knees!
Now Hrothgar’s musicians have all joined in, taking up the song with their harps and flutes and drums. Even Unferth sings, but the king’s gift lies cold and heavy about his throat, and there is considerably less enthusiasm and sincerity in his voice.
Hrothgar, Hrothgar!
The greatest of our kings.
Hrothgar, Hrothgar!
He broke the dragon’s wings!
But the torrents of joyous noise spilling forth from Heorot—the laughter and the fervent songs, the jangle of gold and silver coins—these are not a welcome sound to all things that dwell in this land by the sea. There are creatures in the night that are neither man nor beast, ancient beings descended from giantkind, the trolls and worse things still, who keep themselves always to the watches, to dank fens and forbidding marshlands. Past the mighty walls and pikes of Hrothgar’s fortifications, beyond gate and bridge and chasm, where farmland and pasture turn suddenly to wilderness, there stands a forest older than the memory of man, a wood that has stood since before the coming of the Danes. And in the vales that lie on the far side of these gnarled trees, are frozen bogs and bottomless lakes leading back down to the sea, and there are rocky hillocks riddled with caves, tunnels bored deep into the stone even as maggots bore into the flesh of the dead.
And in one of these caverns something huge and, to the eyes of man, ghastly crouches in the muck and gravel and a bright pool of moonlight leaking in through the cave’s entrance. It moans pitifully and clutches at its diseased and malformed skull, covering misshapen ears in an effort to shut out the torturous sounds of revelry drifting down like a thunderous, hammering snow from Heorot. For even though the mead hall and the tower on the sea cliff are only a distant glow, there is a peculiar magic to the walls and spaces of this cave, a singular quality that magnifies those far-off noises and makes of them a deafening clamor. And so the troll thing’s ears ring and ache, battered mercilessly by the song of Hrothgar’s men even as the shore is battered into sand by the waves.
He offered us protection
When monsters roamed the land!
And one by one
He took them on—
They perished at his hand!
The creature wails—a keening cry that is at once sorrow and anger, fear and pain—as the ache inside its head becomes almost unbearable. It claws madly at its own face, then snatches in vain at the darkness and moonlight, as if its claws might somehow pluck the noise from out of the air and crush it flat, making of it something silent and broken and dead. Surely, its ears must soon burst, and this agony finally end. But its ears do not burst, and the pain does not end, and the thanes’ song swells and redoubles, becoming even louder than before.
Hrothgar, Hrothgar!
We honor with this feast,
Hrothgar, Hrothgar!
He killed the fiery beast!
“No more, Mother,” the creature groans, rolling its eyes and grinding its teeth against the song. “Mother, I can’t bear this. Only so much, and I can bear no more!”
Tonight we sing his praises,
The bravest of the thanes.
So raise you spears!
We’ll have no fears,
As long as Hrothgar reigns!
The creature clenches its great fists together and gazes up into the frigid night sky from the entrance of the cave, wordlessly begging Máni, the white moon, son of the giant Mundilfæri, to end the awful noise once and for all. “I cannot do it myself,” the creature explains to the sky. “I am forbidden. My mother…she has told me that they are too dangerous.” And then it imagines a hail of stone and silver flame cast down by the moon giant, falling from the sky to obliterate the hateful, taunting voices of the men forever. But the singing continues, and the unresponsive moon seems only to mock the creature’s torment.
“No more,” it says again, knowing now what must be done, what he must do for himself, since none other will ever end this racket—not the giants, not his mother. If there is to be peace again, then he must make it for himself. And gathering all his anger and suffering like a shield, battening it close about him, the monster steps quickly from the safety of shadows, slipping from the cave and out into the shimmering, unhelpful moonlight.
From his place behind the king’s throne, Unferth watches as the mead hall sinks ever deeper into drunken pandemonium. His own cup is empty and has been empty now for some time, and he glances about in vain for the slave who should have long since come to refill it. There is no sign of the boy anywhere, only the faces of the singing, laughing, oblivious thanes. There does not seem to be a single thought remaining anywhere among them, but for the drink and their women, the feasting and the baying of old Hrothgar’s praises.
Hrothgar, Hrothgar!
As every demon fell—
Hrothgar, Hrothgar!
He dragged them back to Hel!
Wulfgar sits nearby on the edge of the dais, a red-haired maiden camped upon his lap. He lifts his cup to her lips and dribbles mead between her breasts, then she giggles and squeals as he licks it off her chest. Unferth frowns and goes back to scanning the crowd for his slave, that lazy, crippled whelp named Cain. At last he spots the boy limping through the crowd, clutching a large goblet in both hands.
“Boy!” shouts Unferth. “Where’s my mead?!”
“Here, my lord, I have it right here,” the slave replies, then slips in a smear of cooling vomit on the dais steps, and mead sloshes over the rim of the cup and spatters on the floor.
“You’re spilling it!” Unferth growls, and he grabs a walking stick from Aesher, a sturdy, knotted length of birch wood, and strikes Cain hard across the forehead. The boy reels from the blow, almost falls, and spills more mead on the dais steps.
“You clumsy idiot,” sneers Unferth and hits Cain again. “How dare you waste the king’s mead!”
The boy opens his mouth to reply, to apologize, but Unferth continues to beat him viciously with the stick. Some of the thanes have turned to watch, and they chuckle at the slave’s predicament. At last, Cain gives up and drops the goblet, which is empty now, anyway, and he runs away as quickly as his crooked leg will allow, taking shelter beneath one of the long tables.
“Useless worm,” Unferth calls out after him. “I should feed you to the pigs and be done with it!”
Hrothgar has been looking on from his throne, and he leans to one side and farts loudly, earning a smattering of applause from the thanes. “I fear you’d only poison the poor swine,” he says to Unferth, and farts again. “Doesn’t this damned song have an end?” And as if to answer his question, the crowd begins yet another verse.
He rose up like a savior,
When hope was almost gone.
The beast was gored
And peace restored!
His legend will live on!
Hrothgar grunts a very satisfied sort of grunt and smiles, surveying the glorious, wild confusion of Heorot Hall.
“I ask you, are we not now the most powerful men in all the world?” he mumbles, turning toward Aesher. “Are we not the richest? Do we not merrymake with the best of them? Can we not do as we damn well please?”
“We can,” Aesher replies.
“Unferth?” asks King Hrothgar, but Unferth is still peering angrily at the spot where his slave vanished beneath the table, and doesn’t answer.
“Have you gone deaf now, Unferth?”
Unferth sighs and hands the birch walking stick back to Aesher. “We do,” he says halfheartedly. “We do.”
“Damn straight we do,” mutters Hrothgar, as perfectly and completely content in this moment as he has ever dared hope to be, as pleased with himself and with his deeds as he can imagine any living man has ever been. He starts to ask Wealthow—who is seated nearby with her handmaidens—to refill his golden horn, but then his eyelids flutter and close, and only a few seconds later the King of the Danes is fast asleep and snoring loudly.
Through the winter night, the creature comes striding toward Heorot Hall, and all things flee before him, all birds and beasts, all fish and serpents, all other phantoms and the lesser haunters of the darkness. He clambers up from the mire and tangle of the icy bogs, easily hauling his twisted bulk from the peat mud out into the deep shadows of the ancient forest. And though his skull still rings and echoes with the song of the thanes, he’s relieved to be free for a time of the moon’s ceaseless stare, shaded now by those thick, hoary limbs and branches that are almost as good as the roof of his cave.
“I will show them the meaning of silence!” he roars, and with one gigantic fist shatters the trunk of a tree, reducing it in an instant to no more than splinters and sap. How much easier it will be to crush the bones of men, to spill their blood, he thinks. And so another tree falls, and then another, and yet another after that, the violence of each blow only fueling his rage and driving him nearer the true object of his spite. The creature’s long strides carry him quickly through the forest and back out again into the moonlight. Now he races across the moorlands, grinding bracken and shrub underfoot, trampling whatever cannot move quickly enough to get out of his way, flushing grouse and rabbit from their sleeping places. Soon, he has reached the rocky chasm dividing Hrothgar’s battlements from the hinterlands. He pauses here, but only a moment or two, hardly long enough to catch his breath, before spying a lone sentry keeping watch upon the wall. The man sees him, as well, and at once the creature recognizes and relishes the horror and disbelief in the sentry’s eyes.
He does not believe me real, the monster thinks, and yet neither can he doubt the truth of me. And then, before the man can cry out or raise an alarm, the thing from the cave has vaulted across the ravine…
“Did you hear that?” Unferth asks Aesher.
“Did I hear what?”
“Like thunder, almost,” Unferth tells him, and glances down at the fat hound lying on the dais near Hrothgar’s feet. The dog has pricked its ears and is staring intently across the hall at the great wooden door. Its lips curl back to show its teeth, and a low snarl issues from its throat.
“Truth be told, I can’t hear shit but for these damn fools singing,” says Aesher. “Ah, and the snoring of our brave king here.”
Unferth reaches for the hilt of his sword.
“You are serious?” asks Aesher, and his hand goes to his own weapon.
“Listen,” hisses Unferth.
“Listen for what?”
The dog gets up slowly, hackles raised, and begins to back away, putting more distance between itself and the entrance to the hall. Between the throne and the door to Heorot, the thanes and their women continue their drunken revelries—
Hrothgar, Hrothgar!
Let every cup be raised!
Hrothgar, Hrothgar!
NOW AND FOREVER PRAISED!
“Whatever’s gotten into him?” Queen Wealthow asks, pointing to the snarling, retreating dog, its tail tucked between its legs. Unferth only spares her a quick glance before turning back toward the door. He realizes that it isn’t barred.
“Aesher,” he says. “See to the door—”
But then something throws itself against the outside of the mead-hall door, hitting with enough force that the frame groans and splinters with a deafening crack. The huge iron hinges bow and buckle inward, and the door is rent by numerous long splits—but for now it holds.
On his throne, King Hrothgar stirs, and in an instant more he’s sitting up, wide-awake and bewildered. The thanes have stopped singing, and all eyes have turned toward the door. Women and children and some of the slaves begin to move away, backing toward the throne and the far end of the hall, and most of the warriors are reaching for their swords and daggers, their axes and spears. Unferth draws his blade, and Aesher follows suit. And then a terrible, breathless quiet settles over Heorot Hall, like the stunned, hollow space left after lightning strikes a tree.
“Unferth,” whispers Hrothgar. “Are we being attacked?”
And then, before his advisor can reply, the door is assaulted a second time. It holds for barely even another moment, then gives way all at once, thrown free of its hinges, sundered into a thousand razor shards that rain down like deadly arrows across the floor and tabletops and bury themselves in the faces and bodies of those standing closest to the entrance. Some men are crushed to death or lie dying beneath the larger fragments of the broken door as a concussion rolls along the length of the hall, a wave of sound that seems solid as an avalanche, and the air blown out before it snuffs out the cooking fires and every candle burning in Heorot, plunging all into darkness.
Wealthow stands, ordering her handmaidens to seek shelter, then she looks to the doorway and the monstrous thing standing there, silhouetted in silver moonlight. Its chest heaves, and its breath wheezes like steam from its black lips and flaring nostrils. Surely, this must be some ancient terror, she thinks, some elder evil come down from olden times, from the days before the gods bound Loki Skywalker and all his foul children.
“My sire,” she says, but then the creature leans its head back, opens its jaws wide, and screams. And never before has Queen Wealthow or any of Hrothgar’s thanes heard such a foul utterance. The world’s ruin sewn up in that dreadful cry, the fall of kingdoms, death rattles and pain and the very earth opening wide on the last day of all.
The very walls of Heorot shudder from the force and fury of that cry, and the extinguished cooking fires flare suddenly, violently back to life. Rising to the rafters, they have become whirling pillars of white-hot flame, showering bright cinders in all directions. From the throne dais, neither the doorway nor the monster standing there remains visible, the view obscured by the blaze. The hall, which but moments before was filled with song and laughter and the sounds of joyous celebration, erupts with the screams of the terrified and the maimed, with the angry shouts and curses of inebriated warriors as they scramble for their weapons. Behind the wall of fire, the creature advances, roaming freely now beneath the roof of Heorot.
The four thanes nearest to the door charge the beast, and it immediately seizes one of them and uses the man as a living cudgel with which to pummel the other three, sending two of them crashing backward into chairs and tables. The third is flung high, helpless as a doll, and sails the full length of the hall, through the swirling tower of flame and over the heads of those still seated or huddled on the dais before his body smashes limply against the wall behind Hrothgar’s and Wealthow’s thrones.
“My sword!” the king shouts, tottering to his feet. “Bring me my sword!”
Still gripping the fourth warrior by a broken ankle, the monster pauses only long enough to gaze down at his half-conscious, blood-slicked face, only long enough that the man may, in turn, look up into its face and fully comprehend his doom and the grave consequences of his bravery. Then, having no further use of the man, the creature tosses him into the inferno of the fire pit. And the flames shine even brighter than before, seeming grateful as they devour the screaming warrior. Again the monster cries out, assaulting the air and the ears of everyone trapped in Heorot Hall with that booming, doomsday voice.
Aesher takes Queen Wealthow’s hand and leads her quickly from the dais. When they come to an overturned table, he pushes her onto the floor behind it.
“Stay down, my lady,” he says. “Hide here and do not move. Do not look.”
But she does look, as she has never been one to cower or shy away from the countenance of terrible things. As soon as Aesher releases his grip on her, Wealthow peers over the edge of the table, squinting painfully through the glare from the pit. But she cannot see the beast or the thanes struggling against it, only their distorted shadows stretched across the firelit walls. Their forms move to and fro like some grisly parody of the bedtime shadow plays her mother once performed for her. She watches in horror as men are thrown aside and broken like playthings, their bodies ripped apart, skewered, impaled on their own weapons.
“What evil…” she whispers. “What misfortune has brought this upon our house?”
“Stay down,” Aesher says again, but at that moment another body is hurled through the roaring flames, igniting and passing mere inches above the queen’s head. She ducks as the dead and burning man lands in the midst of a group of women crouched together against the wall. The fire leaps eagerly from the corpse to the clothes and hair of the screaming women, and before Aesher can move to stop her, Wealthow grabs a pitcher of mead and hurries over to them, dousing the flames. Aesher curses and shouts her name, but as she turns back toward the sheltering table, a battle-ax slices the air between them, so close she can feel the wind off the blade. The empty pitcher slips from the queen’s fingers and shatters upon the floor. Then Aesher has her by the wrists and is pulling her roughly down, shoving her into the lee of the overturned table.
“Did you see that?” she says. “The ax…”
“Yes, my lady, the ax. I saw that it almost took your damned head off.”
“No, not that. Did you see it hit the monster? It just…it bounced off. How can that be?”
But now the creature has turned toward the table where she and Aesher are hiding, and toward the throne, as well, distracted from its attacks upon the thanes by the hurled ax. In one long stride it steps past the halo of the fire pit, and finally Wealthow can see it clearly, the thing itself and not merely its shadow or silhouette. The monster stops to inspect the unscathed patch of skin where the steel blade struck it, then narrows its furious blue-gray eyes and bares fangs grown almost as long as the tusks of a full-grown bull walrus. It moves with a speed Wealthow would never have thought possible for anything so large, rushing forward and seizing Aesher in its talons, raising him high above its head.
“Run, my lady. Run,” he cries out, but she cannot move, much less run. She can only watch helplessly as the creature sinks its claws deep into Aesher’s body and tears him in two as easily as a child might tear apart a bundle of twigs. His blood falls around her like rain, drenching the head and shoulders of the beast and spattering Queen Wealthow’s upturned face, sizzling and hissing as it spills into the fire pit.
“My sword!” Hrothgar bellows, and at that the monster hurls Aesher’s legs and lower torso at the king. The gruesome missile misses its target and strikes Unferth, instead, knocking him sprawling to the floor. Disappointed, the beast drops the rest of Aesher’s body onto the overturned table, and the lifeless thane’s eyes stare up at Wealthow.
Now I will scream, she thinks. Now I won’t ever be able to stop screaming. But she covers her mouth with both hands, forcing back the shrill voice of her own fear, certain enough that she’ll be the creature’s next victim without screaming and attracting its attention.
And then she sees her husband, stumbling down from his throne, his body wrapped in no more armor than what a bedsheet might offer, his broadsword clenched tightly in his fists and gleaming dully in the firelight. She also sees Unferth, who does not rise to come to the aid of his king, but scrambles away on his hands and knees, fleeing into the shadows beyond the dais.
“No!” Wealthow shouts at her husband, and the monster turns toward her, snatching away the protective barrier of the table with one enormous, knobby hand. The same claws that ripped Aesher apart sink into solid oak as though it were no more substantial than flesh and blood. It lifts the table above her, wielding it like a club.
“Fight me!” howls King Hrothgar, trembling violently and waving his sword at the invader’s back. “Leave her alone, damn you! Fight me!”
And all around them, the hall seems to grow still, no fight left in the surviving thanes, more terror gathered in this hall now than heroes. The beast bares its teeth again and glares triumphantly down at Queen Wealthow, but still she cannot move. Still she can only stand, watching her husband and waiting for the blow that will crush her and release her from this world where such demons may freely roam the night.
“I said fight me, you son of a bitch,” Hrothgar yells, and strikes the creature, but his blade glances harmlessly off and does not even break its skin. “Surely, you did not come all this way to murder women. Fight me!”
And now Wealthow can see that there are tears streaming down Hrothgar’s cheeks, and the monster turns slowly away from her and toward the king. Suddenly, facing Hrothgar, the thing begins to wail and moan, shrieking in pain as its whole body is wracked by some strange convulsion. Its muscles twitch and spasm, and its joints pop loud as the limbs of great trees caught in a fierce Mörsugur gale.
“Yes,” roars Hrothgar. “That’s it. Fight me.”
The creature takes two faltering steps backward, retreating from the king of Heorot Hall, from a fat old man, drunk and tangled in his bedclothes. Now it stands directly over Wealthow, its legs forming an archway high above her head. It whimpers, and drool the color of pus drips from its lips and forms a puddle at her feet. Again the monster roars, but this time there is more hurt and dismay than anything else in that appalling sound.
“Me,” Hrothgar says, brandishing his sword, and he closes half the distance between himself and the monster, between himself and Lady Wealthow.
“NNNNAAAAaaaaaaaaaay!” the beast cries out, its foul breath hurling that one word with enough force that Hrothgar is pushed backward and falls, losing his sheet and landing naked on his ass, his sword clattering to the floor. And then with its right hand, the creature seizes two of the fallen thanes and leaps into the air, vanishing up the chimney above the fire pit. In its wake, there is a terrific gust of wind, and for an instant, the fire flares yet more brightly—a blinding, blistering flash of heat and light—and then the wind snuffs it out, and the hall goes dark, the winter night rushing in to fill the emptiness left behind.
The darkness brings with it a shocked silence, broken only by frightened sobs and the sounds that dying men make. Someone lights a torch, and then another. Soon, the night is broken by flickering pools of yellow light, and Wealthow sees that the mead hall lies in ruin around her. Unferth emerges from the gloom, clutching his sword like someone who is not a coward. The glow of the torches is reflected faintly in the golden torque about his neck. Wealthow goes to her shivering, weeping husband and kneels at his side, gathering up the sheet and covering him with it. She cannot yet quite believe she is still alive and breathing.
“What was that?” she asks Hrothgar, and he shakes his head and stares up at the black hole of the chimney.
“Grendel,” he replies. “That was Grendel.”