“I’m actually very good with horses,” says Wiglaf, and Beowulf ignores him.

Unferth gazes out across the bog, then back toward the dark forest, not yet so very far behind them. Beowulf can see the indecision in his eyes, the fear and also the relief that he has gone this far and will be expected to go no farther.

“I would not have it said I was a coward,” Unferth tells Beowulf. “But I agree it’s no use trying to force our mounts across that dismal morass. They might bolt. They could become mired and drown.”

“I could drown,” says Wiglaf.

“Then you will wait for us, Unferth,” says Beowulf, as he slides off the back of his pony and sinks up past his ankles in the bog. “Ride back to where the forest ends and wait there. Do not let the ponies wander or be eaten, as I do not fancy walking all the way back to Heorot.”

Unferth takes the reins of Beowulf’s pony. “If you think that the wisest course,” he says.

“I do. I will carry Hrunting, and so men will say it was the sword of Unferth that cut the demon’s head from off her shoulders.”

“Aye,” mutters Wiglaf, dismounting with a loud splash. “His sword, if not his hands.”

“I think there’s already a fish in my boot,” moans Wiglaf, and kicks at a thick tuft of weeds.

“If you do not return—” begins Unferth.

“Give us until the morning,” says Beowulf, frowning at Wiglaf. “If we have not returned by first light, ride back to Hrothgar and prepare what defenses you may against the return of Grendel’s mother. If we fail to kill her, we may yet succeed in doubling her wrath.”

“And there’s a cheery thought,” adds Wiglaf.

And without another word, Unferth pulls back on his pony’s reins, and soon he is leading the three ponies back the way they’ve come, toward the western edge of the bog. Beowulf and Wiglaf do not linger to watch him go, but press on eastward, locating what few substantial footholds they can among the thickets of bracken and the tall clumps of grass. Often their feet drop straight through what had seemed like firm earth, swallowed up to the knees by the mud and muck. Then much effort is required to struggle free of the sucking, squelching peat, only to find themselves hip deep a few steps later.

To take his mind off the possibility of drowning or the slimy things that might be waiting in the wide, still pools, Wiglaf talks, as much to himself as to Beowulf. He first relates what he can recall of a saga he heard from one of Hrothgar’s scops—how a Danish princess, Hildeburh, married Finn, a Frisian king, and how much grief and bloodshed inevitably followed. But then Wiglaf forgets exactly how the tale ends—though he knows it has something or another to do with Jutland—and so switches to the daring feats of Sigurd Dragonslayer and his sword, Gram, and how, by tasting the heart’s blood of a slain fyrweorm, Sigurd came to know the language of birds.

“If I but had the heart of a dragon,” says Beowulf, “then perhaps I could learn what all these blasted crows are squawking about.” And he points at three of them perched on a flat stone at the center of one of the pools.

“Oh, that’s easy,” replies Wiglaf. “They’re only telling us we are imbeciles and fools, and that we will taste very good, once the maggots find us and we’ve ripened a day or three.”

“You speak birdish?” asks Beowulf, stopping and peering ahead into the fog.

“No,” says Wiglaf. “Only crow. And a little raven. It is a skill peculiar to the doomed sons of fishwives.”

At that moment there is a sudden gust of sea-scented wind, one of the few the two Geats have felt since beginning their long slog across the marches, and it briefly opens up a gap in the mists before them.

“Look there,” says Wiglaf, pointing north. Only fifty yards or so in that direction, the bog breaks off, as the land grows abruptly higher. And there is a steep bank at the edge of a steaming tarn, and atop the bank grow three enormous oaks, their gnarled roots tangled together like serpents slithering down to meet the water’s edge. There is a dark gap in the roots, and even from this distance, Beowulf can see that the water is flowing sluggishly into the gap and vanishing under the bank. Before much longer, they’ve reached the nearer shore of the tarn and can see that there is an oily scum floating on its surface, an iridescent sheen that seems to twist and writhe in the fading daylight.

“Dragon’s blood?” asks Wiglaf.

“The old man spoke true,” Beowulf replies and then begins picking his way along the edge of the pool toward the bank and the opening in the tree roots.

“A damn shame, that,” sighs Wiglaf. “I was starting to hope he’d made the whole thing up.”

Beowulf is the first to gain solid ground, a barren hump of rocky soil near the entrance of the cave. There is still a patch of snow here, blackened by frozen blood. The corpse of one of Hrothgar’s men lies half-in the tarn, half-out, mauled and stiff. It has attracted a hungry swarm of fish and crabs, and one of the crows is perched on its broken back.

“This must be the place,” says Beowulf, and he curses and throws a stone at the crow. He misses, but the bird caws and flies away. Beowulf draws Hrunting from its scabbard and turns away from the dead man, toward the entrance to the merewife’s den.

“Poor bastard,” says Wiglaf, when he sees the corpse. “Beowulf, you do not want to meet this water demon in her own element.”

“I know.”

“Do you want me to go in with you?”

“No,” Beowulf replies. “I should do this alone. That’s how she wants it.”

“Yes,” says Wiglaf, drawing his own sword and coming to stand at Beowulf’s side. “Which seems to me ample reason for me to go with you. You know that I will. You have but to ask.”

“I know,” Beowulf tells him.

Then neither of them says anything more for a time. They stand there watching the constantly shifting rainbow patterns playing across the dark water flowing into the cave, its entrance starkly framed by a snarl of oaken roots. Almost anything might be waiting for me in there, thinks Beowulf. Almost anything at all.

“It’s getting dark,” Wiglaf says finally. “You’ll need a torch. I wouldn’t mind having one of my own, to tell you the gods’ own truth.”

“Do you still have your tinderbox?” asks Beowulf. “Is it still dry?”

Wiglaf fumbles about inside his cloak and pulls a small bronze box from one pocket. The lid is engraved with a single rune, Sôwilô, the sun’s rune. He opens the box, inspecting the flint and tiny bundle of straw tucked inside. “Seems that way,” he tells Beowulf.

“The farmer, he said the water burns,” and Beowulf nods toward the oily tarn.

“Well, old Agnarr’s been right about everything else. Let me find a dry bough and we’ll see.” And Wiglaf climbs the bank to higher ground and hunts about beneath the oaks, returning with a sturdy bit of branch about as long as his forearm. Next he tears a strip of wool from the inside of his cloak and squats down beside the pool to soak it in the water.

“You’re a handy fellow,” says Beowulf.

“So they tell me,” laughs Wiglaf, but then there’s a loud splash from the tarn, and by the time he and Beowulf look up, there are only ripples spreading out across the surface. Wiglaf glances up at Beowulf. “Care for a swim?” he asks.

“A funny handy fellow,” Beowulf replies, keeping both his eyes on the pool. “Grendel’s dam is not the only monster haunting this lake,” he says, for now he can see sinuous forms moving about just beneath the surface, the coils of something like an eel, but grown almost large as a whale. Wiglaf sees it, too, and he takes the strip of wool from the water and scrambles quickly away from the shore.

One of the coils rises slowly from the water, its green-black hide glistening in the twilight before it slips back into the deep.

“Maybe Hrothgar’s grandfather lied about killing the dragon,” says Wiglaf. “Could be he only wounded it.”