“Huh-how can huh-he suh-suh-sleep through this?” asks Olaf, and nods toward Beowulf, who hasn’t moved from his spot on the floor.

“I don’t think he’s really asleep,” whispers Hondshew.

Wiglaf stops banging his cup against the table. “Why don’t you go ask him and see?” he asks Hondshew.

“You’re not singing,” mutters Beowulf. “And I don’t recollect complaining that I’d had my fill of your pretty voices.”

“We’ve been through the whole thing three times now,” says Hondshew. “Maybe this Grendel beast, maybe he don’t mind Geat singing as much as he minds Dane singing, eh?”

Wiglaf grins and points a finger at a wiry, gray-haired thane named Afvaldr, though no one ever calls him anything but Afi. “Don’t you know a ballad or three?” he asks, and Afi shrugs his bony shoulders and keeps whacking his fist against the table.

“Not a one,” answers Afi. “You must be thinking of Gunnlaugr. Now, he had a pair of lungs on him, old Laugi did. You could hear him all the way from Bornholm clear across the sea to the Fårö-strait when the mood struck him. Why, once I—”

“A shame the dumb bastard went and drowned in Iceland last winter,” sighs Hondshew.

“Aye,” says Afi. “A shame, that.”

“Beowulf, I do not think the frican beast is falling for it,” Wiglaf says. “Maybe—”

“—that’s because you’ve stopped singing,” replies Beowulf, not bothering to open his eyes.

“I think I’ve strained my damned windpipe already,” says Hondshew. “What if Wiglaf’s right? What if this Grendel demon’s decided to sit this one out, eh? Here we sit, howling like a pack of she-wolves in heat, making complete asses of ourselves—”

“Shut up,” Beowulf says, and he opens his eyes. “It’s coming.”

“Wot? I don’t hear—” begins Hondshew, but then there’s a deafening thud, and the great door of Heorot Hall shudders in its frame. And for a long moment, the Geats sit still and quiet, and there’s no sound but the fire and the wind around the corners of the hall. All of them are watching the door now, and Wiglaf reaches for his sword.

“It’s here,” whispers Beowulf. “Draw your weapons.”

But the silence continues, the stillness, the crackling from the fire pit.

“What the hell is he waiting for?” hisses Hondshew.

And then the mead-hall door is hammered thrice more in quick succession—Thud! Thud! Thud! Dust sifts down from the rafters, and chains rattle.

“Guh-guh-Grendel,” stammers Olaf. “He nuh-nuh-knocks.”

There’s a smattering of nervous laughter at Olaf’s grim joke. Beowulf is sitting upright now, watching the door intently, his entire world shrunk down to that great slab of wood and rope and iron.

“Ah, that is no monster,” snorts Hondshew, getting to his feet and drawing his enormous broadsword from its scabbard on his back. “That must be my plum, Yrsa! She’s ready for me to taste her sweet fruit!”

There is more laughter from the thanes, bolder than before, and Hondshew bows, then turns and stumbles across the hall until he is leaning against the barred door.

“Hondshew,” says Beowulf, rising to one knee. “That might not be the wisest course of action.”

“Ah, you’ll see,” laughs Hondshew, and then he calls out through the door, “Patience, my lovely! Give a poor fellow a chance to find his pecker!”

Now Wiglaf stands, his own sword drawn, and he looks anxiously from Beowulf to the door. “Hondshew. No—”

“You drunken idiot,” mutters Beowulf.

“Nah, you just don’t know her the way I do,” chuckles Hondshew and then he raps three times on the door with his knuckles. “She’s a demon all right. I’ll grant you that. One of Loki’s own whelps, I’d wager.” And Hondshew presses one ear against the door. “Are you listening, my plum? Are you ready for another go?”

The thanes have all stopped laughing, and the hall of King Hrothgar has fallen silent and still again. There is a faint scrambling noise from the other side of the door, and then the wood creaks and pops and the hinges strain, and the whole thing bulges slowly inward as some titanic force presses upon it from without.

Beowulf is about to order Hondshew to move away from the doors, when the huge crossbar snaps like a twig. A rain of splinters and deadly shards of the fractured iron brackets are blown out into the hall, and Hondshew is thrown high into the air and sails by over Beowulf’s head to land in a heap on the far side of the room. But there’s no time to see whether or not he’s been killed. The doors of Heorot have swung open wide and hang crooked now on buckled hinges, all those chains dangling broken and useless from their pulleys. Beowulf stares awestruck at the hideous thing standing in the doorway, framed by the night, its scarred hide glistening a wet and greenish gold in the firelight.

“Wiglaf,” he says calmly, though his heart is racing in his chest.

“I suppose,” says Wiglaf, “this means the old man wasn’t exaggerating. Right about now, I bet you’re wishing you’d left your armor on.”

The monster roars and takes another step into the mead hall, advancing on the thanes. Steaming drool leaks from its mouth and spatters the floor. It swipes at the air with taloned hands and glares directly at Beowulf.

“I think it fancies you,” Wiglaf says.

“Save your wit,” Beowulf replies without taking his eyes off the beast. “I fear we’ll have need of it when this is over.”

And then Már, the thane standing on Wiglaf’s left and the youngest in the party, lets out a piercing howl, a crazy whoop that comes out more terror than battle cry, and he charges the creature. Wiglaf grabs for his cape, but the boy is too fast for him. So is Grendel. Before Már’s ax can land even a single blow, the creature is upon him, plucking Már up in one fist like a child’s toy. The beast snarls, its thin lips folding back to expose sickly black gums and yellowed eyeteeth long as a man’s forearm; Már barely has time to scream before he’s bitten in two. There’s a sudden spray of blood and gore, and the severed body falls twitching at Grendel’s feet.

Meanwhile, Beowulf has climbed atop one of the long banquet tables and is moving very slowly and deliberately toward the creature. Wiglaf is shouting commands, and other thanes have begun to close in on the monster. But Grendel only sneers and laughs at them, a gurgling throaty laugh like the sea rushing in between two stones, then drawing quickly back again. It lunges forward and grabs hold of another of Beowulf’s men, a heavyset Geat named Humli, clutching him in both its clawed hands. Humli makes to slash at its face with his sword, but Grendel slams him headfirst into one of the ceiling beams, then tosses the lifeless body into the fire pit. A third thane charges, but is simply swatted away with the back of Grendel’s left hand and sent crashing into the mead vat. The vat spills and pours out into the fire pit, hissing violently and sending up a dense plume of steam and ash. The air stinks of mead and smoke and charred flesh.

And now Hondshew rushes screaming from the shadows of Heorot, bloody and battered, his armor hanging askew and his eyes bright and frenzied. He rushes toward Grendel, his heavy broadsword raised above his head. Hondshew vaults easily over one of the overturned tables, and the monster growls and stoops to meet its attacker. Hondshew’s blade finds its mark, plunging into the creature’s skull, but Grendel only snarls and grins furiously back at the Geat, still holding tight to the hilt of his sword and dangling several feet above the floor.

“Screw you, you ugly bastard,” Hondshew snarls back. “Here I was expecting to meet a proper demon, and all we get is a wee hedge troll.”

Then the monster seizes him about the chest with one hand and with its other reaches up and snaps the broadsword’s blade cleanly in half, leaving seven or eight inches of steel embedded in its cranium. The broken sword clatters uselessly to the floor.