We walked into the large tent. Elder Alo looked disappointed for some reason.

  He asked, "So you encountered the culprits? You're all bruised."

  Culprits? With an s? A slip of the tongue? The tent was full of soft lamplight and the smell of dried meat; the wood floor creaked underfoot. Elder Alo’s eyes traced the cuts and the blood staining my sleeve and then lingered on Kaiguya’s face.

  I nodded, "Yes, Elder Alo. We encountered two men. One named Lucas, a beyond with, by pure coincidence, history with me. He was here to experiment a concoction called Surge, made by a man named Ryuha. Lucas did this experiment to get revenge on me. This experiment resulted in the Hatchahuk turning into what they became."

  I kept my voice steady while the words slipped out. Elder Alo’s fingers tightened briefly around the arm of his chair, a small sign beneath the practiced calm. He nodded. He’s taking this quite easily.

  I continued, "Surge increases power, but only the beyond can handle it. This experiment was to find what potency could work on anyone."

  Elder Alo watched me carefully. His face betrayed nothing, but the lines around his mouth moved in a way I couldn’t place.

  I pointed my thumb behind me at Kaiguya, "He was the successful subject."

  Kaiguya’s fingers tightened on the fabric of his own sleeve. He didn’t lift his head. For Kaiguya it felt like a blow that had carved his chest out, for Odina it was a promise of action, and for Elder Alo... whatever it was, it flicked without comment across his face.

  I looked to my right, to a large cup on a table, "The second man is named Kanglim. He is Ryuha's assistant. He is also beyond. They both escaped. Most important takeaway is that the Hatchahuk can't be saved. Nobody was spared, either. Kaiguya is the last one left. I took dozens of them out at the frontline, but there's probably a few stragglers left."

  The cup on the table caught the lamplight and glinted. Elder Alo’s smile at the last word was slight, a twitch at the edge of his mouth.

  I asked, "Is something funny about that to you, Elder?"

  Odina tapped me on my shoulder, "Hey! It's a nervous smile."

  She nudged me with the tip of her elbow, and her bulked bow shifted against her back with a soft leather sound.

  Elder Alo wiped the smirk off his face quickly, "I apologize. Anyways, good work. Whatever business you had with the Hatchahuk can be taken up with us, if you don't mind."

  His voice was polite, careful, the words slid across the floor as if meant to settle the unquiet inside. His hands folded in his lap and his fingers steepled like a man holding a recipe he didn’t trust.

  I get what's going on here now. But how deep does it go? I kept it to myself. I shook my head, "It was something only they could do. Tomorrow, I shall leave with Kaiguya and Odina to avenge the Hatchahuk."

  Elder Alo frowned, the motion quick and sharp. He didn’t shout or move dramatically, he simply shifted his weight and made a noise that was almost the sound of reconsideration. "Odina wants to go?"

  Odina’s jaw tightened. The scorpion hair-tie at the back of her head bobbed when she nodded. "Yes, Elder. I must go. You can't stop me."

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  Elder Alo waved, "If that is your wish..."

  He spoke the three words like one would grant an offer of hospitality. It was permission dressed as resignation. Kaiguya and Odina began to walk out. They moved together, shoulders squared, but their steps carried the small stiffness of people who have seen too much. They didn't have much to add.

  Elder Alo, you'll get what's coming to you.

  Seven hours later..

  The night had settled thick and breathless. The forest outside was a black mass and the tents were low clouds of shadow. I formed my spear hand, and cut a small hole into the roof of this small treehouse, easily missed. This was where Elder Alo slept.

  The cut made the canvas whisper. The slit I made was narrow, a single, clean incision. It was the kind of work that left no ruffle for the casual eye. A seam that, seen from below, would look like the result of age rather than intent.

  Pretending to care about Odina. What a joke. Kaiguya couldn't see it. Odina couldn't see it. They wouldn't see this justice either, but it's better for them to not know of one of their friends death.

  Inside, the cabin smelled of old smoke and herbs, a coil of dried root sat on a small table beside the elder’s sleeping mat. Elder Alo’s back rose and fell insensibly in sleep. He lay curled like a folded thing, his chest heaving the small slow breaths of a man unaware of the teeth being bared at the gates to his fate. There was nothing noble in his repose.

  There was no way Lucas and Kanglim could poison the entire Hatchahuk without being sensed. What Odina said about giving them food... that was the trigger. Elder Alo wanted the Hatchahuk dead to expand his own tribe. He worked with Lucas and Kanglim to give them food. These tribes are straightforward. They don't participate in dishonorable tactics. What's going to drip down this small line into his mouth is deadly poison called arsenic. This will cause a heart attack in a few days. For an old man like him, it won't be out of the ordinary.

  I slid my hand into my jacket pocket and felt the small, cold vial there. A thin glass tube wrapped in dark cloth that smelled faintly of oil and iron. The weight of it was light and decisive. For a moment I just watched the rise and fall of Elder Alo’s chest, the slow cadence of a man supposed to lead, and I felt the old, practiced calm settle around my shoulders. This wasn’t spectacle. This was a tiny, dishonorable justice.

  I tied the string to the vial’s cap with fingers that didn’t tremble. The knot was neat, the kind of knot you made when you wanted something to disappear without fuss. I fed the string up through the slit I’d cut and let the vial swing like a pendulum over his sleeping lips.

  A child killer. A genocider. A liar. That is what Elder Alo is.

  I eased back and closed the slit. I pulled the string up, and placed it in my pocket. I disappeared into the night, moving back to my bed.

  The moon carved silver lines through the leaves and threw the path into alternating pools of light and black. When I reached my small lean-to I paused and listened. No footsteps, no dogs barking, no shout of alarm.

  The next day..

  "I'll be back." Odina said, putting her backpack on.

  The tents were stirring with the morning. Smoke rose thin and straight into a sky the color of beaten steel. Children who could still claim childhood poked about the camp, eyes wary. Old men kept silent by the fires. Odina tightened a strap across her chest and slung her bow more comfortably on her back.

  She was saying bye to her people.

  They moved around her with a kind of quiet reverence and fear mixed together. Some touched the scorpion hair-tie at the back of her head as if it had become holy. Others spat quietly as she passed, faces set like stone. They lost people too. She smiled a small, hard smile back to them, not of joy, but of promise.

  Kaiguya looked behind him. He began to tear up. He doesn't have a people anymore. Only a brother he hasn't seen in years.

  He stood at the fringe of the clearing, eyes wet and unfocused. The weight of loss sat on his shoulders like an old cloak. He had been a boy when the world carved him, but the grief had made even his posture older than his years.

  I seized the back of his head and made him face forward, "Do not cry. Do not mourn, yet. He's still out there."

  My hand pressed at the back of his skull with great roughness. There was no room for soft grief here... not yet.

  He was shocked for a second. His tear disappeared, and a face full of anger formed. "You're right."

  The transformation was immediate. The wetness at the corner of his eyes snapped into something harder. He squared his shoulders as if reshaping himself from the inside. I felt the tightening in his jaw.

  I said, "He will die."

  He repeated it.

  "He will die."

  Goodbye, Great Forest of Pahn. You were helpful.