Hondshew gasps and spits in Grendel’s face.

The beast laughs at him again, then squeezes, and the green-branch snap of Hondshew’s collapsing rib cage is very loud in the hall. Then Grendel’s jaws open and snap shut again, decapitating the thane.

“That’s four good men you’ve killed this night,” whispers Beowulf, still moving silent and unnoticed toward the monster. “By Heimdall, you’ll not have another.”

But Grendel is too busy gnawing at Hondshew’s mangled, headless corpse to notice that the Geat stands now but an arm’s length away. Beowulf glances at Wiglaf and points to the monster’s groin, then makes a stabbing motion. Wiglaf nods, and Beowulf turns back toward Grendel.

“Enough!” Beowulf shouts, and Grendel looks up at him, its chin smeared dark and sticky with Hondshew’s blood. It blinks and narrows its golden eyes, surprised to find that one of the men has managed to get so close.

“That one’s dead,” Beowulf says. “Put him down and have a go at me now.”

Grendel casts aside what remains of Hondshew and, bellowing angrily, slams one gory fist down upon the table where Beowulf is standing. The Geat is fast and sidesteps the attack, but the impact sends him catapulting up into the rafters. Cheated and confused, Grendel roars and hurls the ruined table toward the smoldering, half-extinguished fire pit.

“My turn now,” says Wiglaf, who has crept in close behind Grendel, and he slides quickly between the monster’s legs and slashes at its groin with his sword. But the blade shatters harmlessly against the brute’s leathery hide.

“Beowulf, the bastard has no bollocks!” exclaims Wiglaf, staring up at the jagged scar where a scrotum ought to be. “He’s a fucking gelding!”

Now Grendel growls and pivots about, swatting at Wiglaf. But the thane manages to get his shield up in time to block the blow and is only sent tumbling backward across the floor toward the open doors of Heorot Hall and the cold, black night waiting beyond. The beast grunts and rubs at its crotch, then charges toward Wiglaf.

“So, is that why you’re such an arsehole,” Beowulf shouts down at Grendel from somewhere among the rafters. When the monster pauses to peer up into the gloom, Beowulf drops onto its back and immediately slips an arm around Grendel’s throat and beneath its chin. Locked in the stranglehold, the beast shakes its head and gurgles breathlessly, then lurches forward, almost sending Beowulf toppling forward and over its scabrous head. But Beowulf holds on tight, pulling himself up until his face is near to one of Grendel’s enormous deformed ears.

“Oh no!” shouts Beowulf. “No, it’s time I finished what Hondshew started, you filthy fucking cur!”

And now Grendel screams and claws at its head, screaming not in anger but in pain, and Beowulf realizes that at last he’s found the creature’s weakness. Something he should have guessed before, the reason the merrymaking of the Danes never failed to bring its wrath down upon them.

“Oh, was that too loud!” he shouts directly into Grendel’s right ear. “Should I perchance whisper from here on out?”

Grendel wails and shakes its head again in a desperate, futile attempt to dislodge the Geat. The monster spins blindly about and smashes headlong into a support column. But Beowulf hangs on, and with his free hand, he punches viciously at the creature’s aching ear. Beowulf feels his chokehold loosening, and so he squeezes tighter.

“It’s shrinking!” shouts Wiglaf from the doorway. “Beowulf, the bastard’s getting smaller!”

“Full of surprises, aren’t you,” Beowulf growls loudly into Grendel’s ear, then punches it again. And now Beowulf can feel the gigantic body contracting and convulsing beneath him, that throat growing the slightest bit smaller around so that he has to tighten his grip a second time. “Neat trick!” shouts Beowulf. “Do you do somersaults, as well, and juggle cabbages? Can you roll over and sit up and fucking beg?”

“Whatever it is you’re doing,” yells Wiglaf, “keep doing it!”

“Listen to me, Grendel,” Beowulf calls out into the monster’s ear. “Your feud with Hrothgar ends here, this night!”

In a final, frantic attempt to dislodge Beowulf, Grendel hurls itself backward toward the smoky, hot maw of the fire pit. But Beowulf guesses the creature’s intent and jumps clear, catching hold of one of the lengths of iron chain still hanging from the ceiling. Grendel goes down hard on the bed of soggy ash and red-hot embers, and it shrieks and rolls about as putrid clouds of yellow-green smoke rise in thick billows from off its searing skin.

“Guard the door!” Beowulf shouts to Wiglaf and the remaining thanes. “Don’t let it past you!”

“And just how the hell do you propose we do that?” Wiglaf shouts back. “We couldn’t keep it out. How do you think we’re gonna keep it in?”

“I’m sure you’ll think of something,” Beowulf says, speaking half to himself now, and he hangs from the chain, watching as Grendel flails and rolls about in the spilled mead and sizzling coals and the stinking, moss-colored smoke. It’s plain to see the creature’s the worse for their encounter, but he knows it might yet escape Heorot alive and slink back through the mists to its den, only to heal and return some other night, and this fight will have served no end but to redouble its hatred and murderous resolve.

Beowulf climbs the chain, pulling himself up hand over hand, then clambers out onto a broad rafter beam and kneels there. Below him, Grendel howls and paws madly at the collapsing edges of the fire pit, managing at last to haul its scorched and blistered bulk free of the wide bed of glowing embers. And to Beowulf’s amazement, he sees that its shrinking body has been so reduced that Grendel now stands not much taller than a very large bear. The beast shakes itself, sending up a sooty cloud of ash and sparks, and then it stops and rubs roughly at its eyes, glancing from the thanes to Wiglaf standing alone and unarmed before the open doors.

“I do apologize for the inconvenience, Sir Grendel,” Wiglaf says nervously, speaking to the monster as he quickly scans the hall for Beowulf. There’s no sign of him anywhere. “I’m afraid you’ll just have to endure our hospitality a bit longer.”

Grendel coughs, then snorts and bares his sharp yellow teeth at Wiglaf.

“My sentiments exactly,” sighs Wiglaf.

And now Beowulf spies another length of chain, only a few feet to his right and swaying to and fro like a pendulum. One end is looped fast about the ceiling beam, and the other is still wrapped about a large section of the shattered crossbar from the doors.

The other thanes have joined Wiglaf at the entrance to Heorot Hall, but Grendel is advancing on them. Even at hardly more than half its former height, the snarling beast remains a formidable adversary.

“You will have to take that up with my master Beowulf,” Wiglaf tells the monster, and accepts a spear from a thane named Oddvarr, replacing his lost sword. “You see, he makes the rules.”

“That’s right,” Beowulf whispers, crawling farther out along the beam. “Just don’t you dare let that fucker escape.” When he reaches the swinging chain, Beowulf lowers his body over the side, grips the metal links, and slides down until he’s standing on the suspended chunk of crossbar. Then he steadies himself and leans forward, setting all his weight against the swaying chain, increasing its arc and aiming it directly at Grendel’s head.

“Over here!” Beowulf shouts, and so the monster turns away from the open doors and the thanes blocking his way, moving more quickly than Beowulf would have expected. It has just enough time to raise one clawed hand and ward off the missile hurtling toward it. When the piece of crossbar makes contact with Grendel’s clenched fist, it explodes, reduced at once to mere slivers, and Beowulf dives for the floor and rolls away to safety.