"Here Be Monsters" scrawled across their rune maps, marking all the Mist-cursed waters surrounding the Isle. Arik prayed to any god listening that those warnings proved true as he waded through those cursed waters.

He stalked the gray fog with his war-sword drawn, chasing sword-fame and battle-glory. Sharp-eyed Esla prowled at his side, her long spear held light and ready.

They slogged ever-deeper into the marsh.

"The Mon love us," Esla said softly, scraping mud from her leather leggings. "We'll wear half their filth back home on us."

"Let the Mon love us instead by parting their Mists and revealing one of their children for my sword to bite," Arik growled back. "I expected to be tossing draug heads onto feast tables by now, not still wading knee-deep in swamp slog."

"You always expect too much."

"You always demand too little."

"Sh..." Esla said, Sinking low into dark waters.

Arik dropped beside her. His hard gaze drove into the Mists.

Water ripple. Mist swirl. Bare, rotting trees jutting up like bones. A gnarled hummock cresting out of the swamp. A hunched figure atop. Crunching of meat and gristle between grinding teeth.

"A lone draug-runt," Esla murmured. "We're truly rich in Mon-luck."

"Let the Mon give us one of their spawn worthy of a boast then," Arik countered, rising to full height. "If we must settle on so meager a foe, let us at least make a fight to wrap a tale around."

He opened his mouth to call the draug to battle but his twin yanked him down.

"'Don't use words when wise is better. Never use might before using mind,'" she whispered in his ear. "How many times must you hear that?"

She tapped his forehead. "Until we've Crux-birthed, even this draug-runt might suffice to send us both to the feast halls of the dead. Did you not see the splintered spears scattering its lair? The crushed helms? What do you think it finds so feast-worthy? Or whom?"

Tempering his impatience took several breaths. He turned his eye again to the mount and saw his sister spoke true.

A rusting axe head here. A battle-hewn shield there. Cracked skulls of man and animal stared into the gray fog.

He followed her through the chill waters around the mound, trying to emulate her silent glide. "How then does far-thinking Esla plan to slay the draug-runt?"

They crouched as it crunched. It tore clothing and armor from its prize to reach the man-meat beneath.

Esla looked at the scattered, rusting weapons. Glanced at torn clothing littering the mound. Took in skeletal trees. Broken helms. Held a moment on a corpse bobbing in the bog.

Her pale gray eyes turned to Arik, lit in that way they took when a plan formed in the depths of her mind. She shook her head. "You would fight it with battle-courage and sword-might. I say no. Our great demon-slaying god, Othur, lost the war fighting this way. If He'd won the war, we wouldn't hunt this draug now, would we? And we've not Other's armor woven with threads of fate nor His sword forged from frozen time."

She shook her head then stared at the gore-feasting draug. "We've my spear. Your sword. My wits. Your brawn. We'll not repeat Othur's lost war writ small but let us fight cunning-like as His sister Loke might. Mind before arm, wise before word."

----------------------------------------

An short-axe whistled through the Mist, its head cutting deep into the draug's gray, thick-skinned hide. The beast bellowed and thrashed, wailing in pain and injustice.

"What's this?" it gibbered. Reached back at angles no human arm could match. Pried the axe from its malformed back to leave a shallow-wound. "Attack from Mist lurkings? Cowards and thieves attack me!"

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

It grabbed an immense femur club taken from some great beast. Angry swings splattered mud. Crushed jutting rib cages. Hurled broken skulls into the bony trees as it tantrum-raged. "Humanlings fight weak-like. Show strength and fight draug-like: bone-to-steel and meat-to-meat."

A spear flew true from the haze to pierce the draug's thigh. A mocking woman's voice called from the Mist. "I prefer to fight woman-like. Steel-to-meat suits me better."

The draug ripped the spear free with a spray of blood and shriek of pain. It rushed towards the voice. Spotted a slender, muddy, shield-armed figure leaning against a broken tree. It howled its rage as it rushed ape-like across the squelching ground. Its man-killing club flew down.

Shield shattered. Tree sundered. Bone crushed. The club fell like a mad smith's hammer, mutilating the figure until only a few cloak shreds and bone splinters littered the mud.

The draug sniffed the air. Swiveled its bent neck.

"Woman-smell here, but man-smell near also," it muttered. Turned. Squatted. Shat where it had crushed the first humanling.

Grief-fury would surely make the man reveal himself. Lure the man out into reach of the draug's man-killing club.

Another axe whooshed through the mist to bite deep just above the draug's hip while its head was turned elsewhere.

"Vengeance for bone-shattering my shield-mate," a deep male voice taunted from the fog. "Come to me monster. I'll carve a map of this feast-mound into your ugly hide."

The draug shrieked. A bony elbow broke the axe-haft but drove the axe-head deeper into its side.

Gibbering with rage, the draug hurtled towards the voice in a series of lurching bounds. Landed off-balance as its spear-wounded leg gave out.

Rising from the muck, it spotted a tall man in a moldering cape. Alone. Rust-helmed. Spear-armed amid a desolate grove.

Blood oozed from the draug's war-wounds unnoticed. It bellowed. Ran to crush the insulting axe-hurler beneath its club.

Its blows pulverized the warrior. Pounded all trace of man and man-craft into the grisly mud. Smashed apart every tree in reach. Only then, panting and whining, did the draug limp back to its earlier feast.

"Fair not humans, fare not well humans," it muttered. It smiled its bone-grinding teeth at its own wit. Smile turned to grimace. Pain plagued it from the bloody spear bite to its leg. From axe-wounds to its back and side.

It stared down hatefully at its meal's red-bearded face. Twisted and tore the head from the corpse to suck a tasty eyeball from its socket. "Now draug taste how man see."

Another face lay beneath the first. The draug stared, astonished, a the bloody female face glaring up at him. The dead man gave birth to a woman from its gore? Was that how the hateful gods made puny humans?

A lithe arm hooked the draug's neck. Pulled down. Drove a long knife up through the draug's eye.

"Draug see how steel feel," the death-birthed woman snarled.

She clung on as the draug lurched back, dragging her to her feet from under the corpse.

The draug tried to strangle her but the blade drove deeper in reply.

It thrashed its death-throes as she held on, remorseless. It wailed. Fell. Fell silent.

----------------------------------------

"One less vile thing sustaining the World-Siege," Esla spat, shoving the dying draug from her.

Arik's lanky form congealed from the Mists, war-sword rested flat on a shoulder. Seeing the draug-runt dead in the mud, he slid his war-sword to its sheath and his scavenged shield edge-on into the mud.

The twins clasped forearms. Headbutted.

"Draug will learn to fear the name Arik, son of No One," Arik boasted.

She released him. Stood chest to chest. Stared up into his face. "Draug will never speak Arik's name, for Esla, daughter of No One will have already slit their throats."

He laughed. "They will never learn Esla's name, for none shall survive witness of Arik's sword-might."

"If Arik's sword-might matches his puny boast-ken, all draug will learn Arik's name," she said. Ruffled his shaggy, filthy hair. "Let us build a feast hall from draug bones so they know where to find us."

"And lift wyrm skulls within to toast each other's battle glory. Lounge in thrones crafted of demon skulls mortared with silver."

She bent. Pried the red-bearded head from the death-stilled draug's grip. Looked at its face. "Lothmar, son of Arl Langan. Good death-luck sent him flying like an arrow to the feast-halls of the gods."

"Fired from a bow that broke on its first shot. A good death from a poor battle." Arik grunted. Took the head from her. Knuckled the jaw open.

A gleam of gold within.

"The Arl's silver paid the smith. The smith shaped a gold ring into this tooth. The tooth he wore in his smile that he might mock me with every grin and taste with every drink the golden birth-luck ring I slaved so long for. Took it from me by his dice-luck. Such luck always lay thick on him, as if the son of an Arl needs luck."

He pried the tooth free with his heavy dirk. Rinsed away Lothmar's blood. Placed the gilded tooth in the luck-pouch he wore about his neck.

Esla returned from scouting the mound's extent. Sketched it with a charcoal stick upon a stretch of scraped hide that served as a crude map. "Six warriors the Arl sent with him. Six to ensure Lothmar returned Crux. Sending six with one and none wise to Mist or monster doomed seven instead."

Arik wiped his dirk on his leather leggings and sheathed it. Held Lothmar's head up by the hair. "All would have decried the Arl pulling war-ready Mistyrs away from the walls. Too many steadings burned during the last breach."

He hocked. Spat. Tossed Lothmar's head aside. "Pah. They all cower behind the battle-brave Mistyrs and god-favored Crux guarding the borders. They pray to Othur to stop monsters and demons escaping from the maps' Misty edges to suck the marrow from their bones."

Esla regarded him silently, taking in everything. As she always did.

"I swear on Othur's bright, time-forged sword which drove the Mon beyond the world's curve," he boomed, pacing the mound. "Swear on my seat in the gods' hall and the blood of all my unknown ancestors that I shall not cower, shall never be content to wait on the wall to watch the end to come."

By the vigor with which he vowed, he might have shouted to a hall full of ready axe-warriors and eager shield-maidens. Instead, his twin. Her head tilted as she soaked in his boast-oath.

"Our maps end at these Misty waters," he continued. A gesture encompassed the desolation about them. "A few runes traced across the empty stretches - 'Here Be Monsters' - and our people cower and wait. Wait for what? The monsters to overwhelm us?"

His voice rose further until he bellowed into the Mist. "By all the gods, I vow I shall stalk where the monster's borders end. The Mon will gnash their teeth and their monstrous children hide trembling with fear that we prowl their Mists."

A moment's silence. Something splashed in the swamp. Water dripped and rippled. A raven croaked from a skeletal tree branch. Esla clapped.

"Arik cries a boast worthy of the Arl's hall. Look, one of the gods' ravens witnessed it. Vow it again when we return and become children no more and I'll utter the oath by your side."

She drew his war-sword. Cleaved off the draug-runt's head. Held it up by its coarse, gray-black mane.

"We shall carve our names together in the blank spaces on the monsters' maps," she vowed. "We shall trace our name-runes in the monster's dark blood: 'Here Be Arik and Esla'."