“Good work Beowulf, but I should expect as much from my finest pupil, then, shouldn't I?” The old master praised me after besting another sparring partner. The next challenger steps up. I blur my steel with the air as I was taught, drawing circles round the dirt in anticipation of his first move. A thrust, but too low, I manage to block easily. He thrashed about, reddening and lashing in attempt to upset my movements. In three quick movements he was disarmed. Lines chiseled onto the masters already pleated face.
“Disgraceful Breca, you let you emotions get the better of you far too easily! You think the beasts of the forest care about your anger, the soldiers of Jutes? They will use your weakness to crush you. There is no mercy here in my school, get out and mend your mind!” I felt a pang of empathy for my fallen peer only to be overcome by the weight of my sword on my fatigued limbs.
“Two and ten victories in succession, impressive. Were that on the fields of battle you surely would have bards writing lays for you, eh?”
“Think I could live up to the tales of Shield Sheafson?”
“Ha, that decrepit Dane? I should surely think that legends of a true Geatsman would sit better with me when I’m in my old age.”
“You’re already old.” At that he smacked me.
“I won’t be old ‘til I can no longer wield my great-sword, young pup. Still, I have a fine vision of you living up to, even surpassing Ecgtheow’s reputation.”
“Father’s shadow seems to still sit over me then?” I jested.
“Remember your place Beowulf, you aren’t a man yet. You’ll be sixteen winters this coming season and only then, not sooner, will you be able to challenge your late great father’s reputation.”
Later that night I sat around the fire pit with the other trainees and the dogs, both so dirty and matted with grime that if someone should see us now, they would turn in fear thinking the beasts of the northern pines had descended. Some people slowly sharpened their weapons, others simply stared at the dancing red spirit. I joined the latter. In a moment the fire would die out and we would have to stumble through the darkness back to out lodgings, but for now we clung to what little the embers cast light on, the little we knew to be real in the night. We weren't unlike the dogs lazing around the pit. We were praised for accomplishing what we are instructed, it’s all that we knew how. “The king needs true Geatsmen!” the old master would boast. “Can you fill the shoes of your ancestors?” Such was the few truths in my life. I could protect and serve – provide for my country. All I must do was stand up tall and wield my sword.
The king took charge of me when my father passed on. I was an infant at the time, but the ruler of a nation is a much demanded man and his attention was sparse. I took to attaching myself near the old weapons master. He instructed me about the traditions of our people, often rambling on for hours about honor and pride. To say I was enthralled would be a gross understatement. Here laid out before me were the qualities of legends and heroes. Golden pillars of men, loved, respected and feared; and I could be one. No, I had to be one. A sword in my hands fits as naturally as a hammer in a blacksmith’s. Or at least that’s what the old master said. What else could I do? Is it not a crime to restrain from putting my talents to use? I have feverently spent my youth training and waiting for the time when I am a man; the time when I will make good on my promises to the old master. For that monolith to approach so quickly, I can’t help the sensation of my feet sliding down a hill. Somehow, the gods will turn me into a man.
* * *
That’s what I thought anyway. Now I am nearly twenty and I feel no different than I did as a child. Alone in the forest, the immaterial shadows more pressing than ever. In the night’s ink, a grotesque tale of slithering beasts is penned. Shifting from tree to tree, an oppressive malevolence seethes from just beyond my range of sight. I can’t think, I can’t feel; I can only stand there imprisioned by my own limbs – by the limitations of my own sight. The beast rears up – impossibly tall. A sword is placed in my numb hands and I fumble with the hilt, the nerves writhing with numbness. Voices pleaded, screamed! “Save us! Protect us! Die for us!” I lift my sword and hold it – trembling in my cold. Staring down the shadow – hello friend, there is no time to cry...
“Beowulf!” I groggily pulled myself upright in the cart, shaking off the remnants of sleep. “Good, you’re awake. We’ve almost arrived.”
“Is that all that’s left?” On in the distance lay the remnants of what once was a large fire – ashes and not much more.
“The bastards burnt the whole damn thing down. After they drank all the mead and looted the gold no less. I don’t even know why the king bothered sending us out here. As if they’d come back to raid a pile of embers. Those rancid bandits are so filthy I’m sure they would simply rot and die of scurvy if we only left them to.” He glared out at the soot rising off the horizon looking for ghosts.
“Chiding bandits for not bathing properly? Not everyone shares your affinity for spending long amounts of time in the water, Breca.” He punched my arm at that.
“Oh, will you never shut up about that damn wager,” he said; coyly turning over his palms in proposition. “What you fail to see my friend, is that you are the burdened one. The expectation of upholding the champion’s title falls on your shoulders.”
“Ha! You always have an odd way of looking at such things. It always wonders me why you became a solider, you surely could be put to no end of use as an advisor to the king.” “I appreciate the flattery, but I do have to start somewhere. One does not simply walk up to a king demanding he take one’s advice. And for that matter, I don’t think advising would nearly suit me. I’ve figured that when I’m old and my sword is rusty I could always take to recording the battles we fight now with a pen. No, I don’t think that life would disagree with me at all.”
“You? A scribe! And creating fodder for the bards no less! A solider in a scriptorium, now that’s a laugh.”
“It may not be the most glorious of endings, but I should think marking my place in history with ink would be second to that in blood.”
“The mighty Breca giving up his glory and honor for a humble life, his sword and armor for a quill and robes! Next I suppose you will be tying yourself down with a wife and revoking mead.”
“You may laugh now, but should my plans follow through it is I who will be recording your life for future tales, so a bit of respect wouldn’t be harmful to your legacy.” That damn fool had an answer for everything.
For a while I sat in the cart amidst the cloud of sweat and irritability. We had been on the move for days, and now we would have to watch our arses’ grow sorer as we rerouted to the next town. The creak of the wheels groaning on endlessly. Rolling round and round.
“Well, my eyes can’t find the bandits but my nose tells me that they wouldn’t be out of place here.”
“Again with your whining and whimpering, Breca. You sound like a dog who’s tail has been stepped on.”
“Still, I doubt there is much of a chance at seeing those bandits show up again. I suppose we’ll just sit around being glorious heroes in the meantime.”
“I think that style of comment is the one that usually tempts fate. You owe me a mead should your seduction prove successful.”
We meandered through he town for some time before I returned to camp. I sat around the fire trying to discern shapes in the smoke. My hands methodically went to cleaning my sword and armor. Methodical tasks to keep up with appearances. I needn’t even look to see where they moved to accomplish their task. Without the distraction of Breca’s banter I had a clear view of my muddied thoughts twisting like fire. ‘What fuel do they use?’ The notion amused me.
Air hung stale over the camp – the smoke from scant fires rising directly to the stars. Tomorrow would mark our official entrance to the town; and we, the great heroes of war, would be welcomed with open arms. We, the true men among men. The faces of stone, living statues forged from the cold winter. We would be applauded for our accomplishments. We, the drinkers and boasters. Congratulated for joining the next rank of stone chiseled heroes. We, the arms of virtue celebrated for our tempered souls – our fire hardened souls. Hopefully the town air won’t prove too cold.
I dragged mud along with my shoes as we marched into town. A river of it trailed behind the wall of our stomping boots streaming into the little town. The town itself was almost quaint. It sat between the surrounding knolls – it’s scratched wooden barrier encircling the cottages. As the gates were opened for the morning traffic, we marched in. We were applauded, congratulated, celebrated. Quickly as the throngs of bodies appeared, they then evaporated to return to their daily toils.
“I suppose it’s time we make ourselves useless, eh Beowulf!” conjectured Breca, clapping me on the shoulder. “I caught wind of a tavern near the south end of the town that shouldn’t be too overrun with our greasy comrades.” I assented and we whisked ourselves through the crowds. A whirl of color noise and pungent odor flocked by all the way.
* * *
“Did you notice the villagers staring oddly at us?” I asked. The tavern was old but well built. The thick oak beams sagged under the weight of the roof over the years and floorboards had paths weathered in to them meandering around the bar.
“No, Beowulf. There isn’t any rust on your armor.” Breca slowly creaked back in his chair.
“I didn’t mean that. I... I could swear I caught something in their gaze out of the corner of my eye.” I worked the rough tankard between my hands. I couldn’t pin down my unease. Seeing this, Breca pondered into his mug – a quizzical look on his short-shaven face.
“Suppose they’re in league with the bandits!” he responded with sarcasm. “By the gods Beowulf! You’ve been sitting on knives ever since we got into town. Honestly, I can say the only one giving you ‘odd looks’ is that serving girl over there. (Which aren’t ones of disdain I might add.)” I hazarded a glance over to where Breca indicated. Unfailing with his note, there was a freckled serving girl with mousey braids returning my gaze. With a smirk and a blush she was back to work. Breca stared at me with expectation all the while. “Damn, how is it I can never get a reaction out of you? We finally have a break from grunting around in the mud for a few days, right? I say enjoy it until the gold counters realize how much we’re spending here on mead. Then it will be back to the mud.”
At that point a crash silenced the room. It was the serving girl. A plate lay at her feet and one of the patrons was drenched. The room held their breath until suddenly he broke the silence – slurring something about clumsy brats and wenches. He was drunk, soaked to the bone with liquor, looking around the room for someone to lash out against. Unfortunately, the serving girl was the closest person to him. Everyone stood around watching the bullfight.
“Who’r you? Ye’ mus’ be that Beowulf everyone’s taking ‘bout. The one who swam clear across the sea! Are you so skilled with a sword as they say you are?” I don’t remember walking over to the drunk. Yet here I was, and he insulting me.
“Yes, I am the great Beowulf that you so speak of!” My voice growing with condescendtion. “The warrior not five and twenty and yet already one of the most skilled in the ranks! Is that how you know me?” Who is this miserable drunk to question who I am? “Not only that, but I have yet to have even come close to being defeated in combat once yet!” After what I’ve given to achieve this! “The speed and reach of my sword have yet to reach their limits, and I personally slayed beasts who’s heads now decorate the mead hall!” What does he want? What do they want from me! I have not ceased my journey since I was a boy! Not once have I let my face slip, my honor fall! “No less than ten at that! One was taller than a house, resembling some grotesque marriage of bear and ox with thousands of teeth and hundreds of claws sharper than the finest of arrowheads! But did I shirk in the face of danger as you do now? No! And it was not until he had given me this scar upon my jaw that I did manage the final blow!” So who are you to question me? Are you even a man at all? How do you compare yourself to me? How do I measure myself against you...
My throat was hoarse as the tavern erupted into cheers. The drunkard sulked off quietly as the rest of the room returned to my vision. Everyone was standing around me and applauding, cheering, laughing. A mass of arms seething – another round of drinks passed about. I accepted what was shoved into my hands but I only drank out of respect. I had lost my stomach for mead. I was numb. I don’t know how I felt. I only remember the air being cold.
“Hey!” I looked up from my tankard to see what Breca wanted – confused when I find the musty chair across from me to be vacant. Right, he left hours ago in a glass eyed stupor. A glance around revealed that, standing adjacent to the table was the serving girl. “Are you going to spend the rest of the night sleeping in your mead? It’s hardly becoming of the beast slayer of Geats’.” Scratching where my face had been stuck to the tankard, I groggily tried to piece the room together under the thick odor of stale mead. “Come now, groans and moans like that are no good. Try to use some words.” Were I in a clearer state of mind I might have been offended, but the fog in the room refused to lift.
“What do you want with me?” was all I managed to mutter.
“I suppose I wanted to show some thanks to you after showing up that drunkard, and I would feel bad about leaving you here to drown in your mead.”
“I am not in need of your charity and I never asked for assistance, did I?”
“If you’re so keen on return to sobbing in your mead than you’re more than welcome to continue doing so as long as you pay for it.” Her indigence at my drunken tongue pierced a nerve.
“I am Beowulf! A solider strong and proud so keep your place girl!”
“Whatever you say, ‘strong solider.’ I merely pointed out that you weren't throwing yourself a feast in that tankard of yours.” The room began to spin as the effects of the alcohol returned to twist over my stomach. “Hey! Beowulf...”
* * *
A cold hook yanked me out of slumber. “And the slayer of demons awakens. You look beautiful as ever.” I tore off the drenched sheets encasing me to find I was back in my tent – Breca smirking over me holding an empty bucket.
“What happened lat night? I hope to gods that I didn’t manage to make a fool out of myself.”
“I’d be more critical of your actions if you weren't outclassed by some of the other idiots in our ranks. The worst you managed to do is pass out at the tavern. Though that serving girl from yesterday had to come all the way out to camp to get me to ‘peel my drunk comrade from the table.’”
“What an ass I’ve made of myself,” I relented.
“I know. But there is no worry. You wouldn’t have had the guile to woo her regardless.” I turned to Breca and geld my gaze to be sure he caught full view of my frustrated grimace. “Before you say it, I too am an ass. Placated?” I sighed heavily.
“I suppose I should find some time to thank her today. With any luck she won’t spread rumors.”
“Now more than ever is an opportune time. It’s already past noon.” Damn.
* * *
“I would like to thank you for notifying my friend last night. I can’t express how embarrassed I am at the entire situation. It isn’t like me to let mead get the better of my mind.” Inside I twisted about, disgusted at my current position.
“If you’re really feeling apologetic than do you think you could manage to buy me a mead – I have an excuse to sit down and talk then.” In spite of Breca’s teasings she wasn’t modest in appearances. Yet,
“I can’t in good conscience convince a young lady to have a drink, especially at this hour.” The memories of last night now begin to return to me and with it their weight they had been pressing. Through that my voice began to dull.
“It isn’t terribly wise to contradict the young lady in charge of distributing the mead. Though if that’s all you had to say then you are free to leave. I won’t be speaking against your heroic character, so fret not.” She directed all of this at me with a raised eyebrow, her head tilted back with a slight air of smugness. I had seen this expression before, yet framed by a soldiers helmet.
“I’ll admit to being intrigued more than offended with that statement. I can’t say I’ve encountered a response like such from other serving girls.” I’ll respond to her challenge.
“I assume the more average girls here were all devoured by demons... or the soldiers that hunt them.” She directed this at me with bared teeth in wolfish manner.
“In that case I’ll order two tankards of mead and you can tell me about these demons.” In that sense I fell for her game.
* * *
“So did you really slay a beast larger than a house?” she smirked – an askew grin on her face.
“Well it’s possible that I embellished its size proper, but I assure you it was still well beyond the realm of normal wolves and bears.”
She flashed her teeth in a grin. “Oh to think I had been following after an immaculate golden hero all this time only to find out he is nothing more than a normal solider slaying normal beasts! How ever will this fair maiden cope?” She twisted in a physical display of her sarcasm, which she than washed down with a swig of mead.
“Your biting tone noted, I truly have accomplished some great deeds with my sword though.”
“Your words fall on deaf ears, solider boy. I have been serving here long enough to have realized that which few heroes ever do. Boasts are created more by mead than deeds!” She had taken the wind from my sails there. In the few days we had been drinking together I was ceaselessly amazed at every turn of her speech. “Oh look up and stop sulking. I can’t have hurt your pride that much?”
“No, but I can’t very well take it all in jest when my traditional methods of communicating are disrupted so freshly. My trade is divided up between two jobs, speaking with my sword and then ‘speaking with my mead.’”
“And now that I know what you have said with your mead, what is it you have said with your sword?”
“I...” couldn’t finish my sentence. I had rent monsters and men dead alike, but what color other than red could I paint with my my steel brush? With my finger I traced over the groves in the table from end to end disarmed.
“If I’m not being too brash, why is it you choose to be a solider?”
“To protect the people of Geats.”
She shifted her pursed lips from one sider of her mouth to the other. “Should that be true I would readily accept your answer, but as it stands we are a nation at peace. You however, stand and wait for a fight. It’s not out of necessity.”
“What about honor! Is it not enough to be a hero? I am a man, aren’t I? Is it wrong I act as one?” I stepped back, shock that I had reacted enough to have stood up. I slowly picked up my chair.
“Had I ever given indication that I cared for heroes?”
“And I should judge my worth on your views!”
“How you view yourself is up to you, but note that nearly every solider here is what you would call a ‘true man’ and yet I’m currently only talking to you.” My face had become flushed with red.
“There are certain values held by the nation. I should simply disrupt them?”
“You speak with such fear of the faceless ‘nation’ as if they are judging you. But who are they? You do not know them! You do know me however, and you choose to keep your company there. Am I wrong?” Disarmed again. “But enough with this. I’m not so obtuse as to not notice the subject pains you. Drinking should be a merry time and we’re not yet through with our mead!” And it was like this that I managed to pass most of my time while holed up in the town of Yoits – warm, happy, and with mead.
* * *
“So I see the young infatuated hero returns! Off prancing through daised meadows with your little serving girl, I assume.”
“Beyla. That is her name you know. Or do you continue to irate me out of jealousy?”
The past few days have been pleasant, even enjoyable, and Breca’s rusting quips had ceased to unnerve me. The white tent walls shook gently in the wind. How close my world had become within the last week and oddly I wasn’t bothered by it.
“Though I can see how she would catch your eye. As unconventional as she is, her tongue is nearly as florid as mine.” He said this while lightly grazing his short beard.
“So it is jealousy then.” I jested.
“I would never think about stealing my comrade’s woman. Though I must ask what your plans involving the little miss entail. We are scheduled to return to the road again tomorrow and you can’t very well tie her up to drag behind the oxen.”
“Were the circumstance different I might take her as my wife. Granted traditional courtship methods might not be so normal with her, but still. I don’t even have a house of my own, how could I settle it with a wife?”
“And yet you are torn to see her go.”
“Perhaps I could ask her to wait a year. Then I might have time to earn a place in the world she wouldn’t be uncomfortable with.”
“Or you could proceed as the bandits do – dragging her off by her hair as a war trophy. But judging her, you would become ‘Beowulf, the warrior publicly beaten and shamed by a woman’ if you ever tried that.”
Slowly a rising wave of unsettling noise overcame the calm of my tent. They were screams. A thunder erupted from the boots of soldiers rushing to the village as a horn was sounded. That sound, It called out as a raven – piercing and scratched. I didn’t feel myself move, years of training commanded my limbs to draw my sword and run with the rest of the soldiers. Running to the fires now breaking out over the town. Running to the screams.
Huge demons writhed in a twisting dance of death over the village. Demons of fire burning in huge arching flames. The village was writhing with a living river of people flowing through the streets, struggling to escape the bandits. They ran from the fires screaming, shouting at me till their throats were flayed raw and bleeding. “Save us! Protect us! Die for us!”
Their ears, their eyes, blood streaming. Where was I? ‘Why can’t you stop this?’ Cracks issued from the beams of houses twisting and withering in the fire – from the bandits smashing and stealing. From bones being broken in front of me. In blindness I lashed out to ply the only trade I had, and my blade quickly found flesh. The bandits were not skilled fighters.
* * *
I sat there – dead. Staring at the charred remnants of the building in front of me. The mead barrels made the old tavern burn faster and harder than the others. So there I sat, my soul cracked from the heat, praying to the gods that this nightmare would end. That I could wake up from the pain and the ashes would be gone.
In spite of what the survivors said, I had spent all day and night searching for Beyla. Only now have I returned to kneel here and accept. ‘She was in the building when bandits set it on fire.’ I couldn’t stop the pressure in my chest, tears began to run down my face mixing with the ash and blood.
“My old weapons master taught me everything I know about sword play. He was as bitter as fermented herring; but still, nearly a father to me. Whenever I felt weak he always said a true man must be strong, he must never cry.” All this seemed to amuse her greatly.
“That’s preposterous! A crying child is one matter but since when does toughness come from holding yourself up inside? To whom are you trying to be a man for anyways?” Stumped into silence again, this was the last question I remember Beyla asking me.
So I sat there covered in blood ash and tears. Crying unrelentlessly, at a loss for how I could have let her down. How I had somehow managed to let her die like this. How weak was I? Beyla, what do I do? Where do I go?
* * *
It has been forty years since and I still don’t have answers. I have grown old and won many battles. Defeated more foes than hairs on my grey beard, more than surpassing my fathers legacy, and I am still a solider. I live each day as a dream, with blurred awareness of the plot and an unaware control of my actions.
“Beowulf the Great! The king has requested your presence.” So now I coaxed my aging bones to fulfill this request. The specifics of the king’s instructions were blurred to me. The throne had changed hands, but I couldn’t tell him apart from his father. I was given a battalion and my sword to fight the greatest threat to our nation yet. A dragon had appeared, burning and pillaging the villages. I was the only one who could kill it. The only hero left. That’s what they said.
“I’m honored to be meeting you Beowulf the Great!” It was an overly rehearsed line and the boy couldn’t have been older than sixteen winters. “I’m Wiglaf, I’ll be helping serve you to slay the dragon. I really am honored to meet you sir. I’ve been training to become a solider and one day hope to come close to matching your accomplishments.”
“Really? I can’t say I feel like I’ve done much other than grow old.” I know why he is pulling on my subconscience, he reminds me of myself.
“Sir, modesty isn’t really suited on a hero of your caliber isn’t it? You did slay the terrible demon Grendel, did you not?”
“That I did,” I affirmed
“And his mother?”
“That I did,” I reiterated.
“And weren't you the one who felled no less than fifty bandits during the burning of Yoits?”
“That I did.” This time quietly and somber. Why did he have to resurface my past? No more words were spoken between us or the rest of my men. We simply waited quietly till we arrived at the dragon. So we could do our job.
When the earth shook, I knew the first toll of my death bell had begun. The dragon was enormous, an ancient beast older than the barrows themselves. Lording over the hills from his sky throne, wings blotting out the sun so the only light was from his fire. I drew my sword from it’s sheath for what I knew to be the final time. The first toll of my death bell, It weighed heavily in my hands.
The beast looked me directly in the eyes. The rest of the world becoming consummated upon this fiery orb as I stared down my final opponent. His eyes, his soulless burning eyes, searching for anger and destruction were directly connected to my own. Silently exchanged, words without sound known only to the warriors. Hello friend, I see you too are growing old. Still lost in age.
He twisted for my throat as I his. Claws against steel, no sounds were made as our weapons found the other’s flesh. Goodnight old friend, I wish you goodnight. Blood began to well from my chest.
“Beowulf! Sir!” It was Wiglaf. Holding my head as he knelt by my fading body. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I couldn’t...” his face was twisted in pain.
“Don’t worry. It seems fitting that I should die with a sword in my hand.” I tried to smile through coughing up blood.
“No sir! You... You can’t...”
“Why do you look as if you are about to cry? The dragon is dead, don’t worry on me.”
“No sir I won’t. A true man never cries, I’ll see you through as such.” Such heroics...
“Whoever told you such a thing? You have nothing to prove to a dying old man.” A disheveled dragon scale, soaked in blood, twisted through the sky as if fell above me – coming to rest on my broken chest. So this is death. “Beyla, I finally have a response. I’m only sorry it took ‘til now.”
* * *
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