“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.
“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.