“So…” Yajaira trembled, “Porta’s in there?”

I nodded my head, “Yep. So is Apep and so is Ghala.”

Yajaira, Huy, and Barth had rejoined us in the brush. We stared at the large hut. It was a teepee model made of full tree trunks strung together by braided vines at the top. It had a door of stretched hide guarding the entrance. My reverse Socorro had worn off so we had no clue what was going on inside.

“What do we know about cyclopes?” I asked.

“They have one eye!” Tuf said while scratching his belly.

“Right,” I said, “What do we know that’s not… like their whole conceit. Like actual info that wasn’t present to us from the jump.”

“They have a horn.” Tuf said, this time reaching to a spot on his shoulder blade that he couldn't quite get..

“Mhm.” I said. “Admittedly that’s new information but we just found that out.”

“They live in big huts.” Tuf said again, “And they have Porta. They have Apep. They have Ghala.”

“Get it all out of your system.” I said, “Keep going.”

“They wear hooded robes,” Tuf continued, “They fish for children in rivers. Huy, could you scratch the spot on my back?”

“Yes.”

“Wait!” I said, “That's a good point.”

“What’s a good point?” Tuf asked, Huy used his fingernail on the spot Tuf was trying to itch and said, “Oooh, that’s a great point.”

“It uses tools. It fishes. It was looking for fish, but found children. Is it guaranteed he’s going to eat them? It’s not like the Tarantuladon. It could potentially be reasoned with.” I thought for a second. “What if we made a trade? We find him some fish and in exchange, he gives us the kids back?”

“That… thing…” I looked over to find Kaavi still cowering, his hands on his head and a stare so far off he could be looking at the cliffs behind us, “That thing… isn’t reasonable.”

“Kaavi,” I said, “We have to try at least a little.”

“No!” Kaavi said, “No. I’m the leader. That thing can’t be reasoned with,” He stood up and started pacing around.

“Kaavi,” I started.

“You said I was the leader,” he interjected.

“I did. You are,” I kept trying to calm him down but he was incorrigible. He just kept pacing and muttering, “no reason. No way. Not going to happen.” He looked back at me, “If we try to talk to it, we’ll all get killed.”

“We don’t know that.” I said, half-heartedly. The truth was that I was operating off of a hypothesis and the cyclops taking the children did make him seem quite monstrous. It was not out of the realm that something that built a teepee and fished was not sapient. I just knew that the alternative was a bunch of kids going up against a giant monster. That outcome looked bleak.

Kaavi looked at the cyclops’ teepee. “We all storm his house.” He said, “You’ll give us the aura of shielding, Egen. Then we all come in from different angles. If all of us have Stride and Aura of shielding…”

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“We’re running out of mana for the day, buddy,” I said, “And if we fight him… we could maybe take him down but he’d take out a lot of us.”

“I’m the leader. That’s what you said. You even said you’re not going to back on it, right?” He implored.

“Yes,” I said, “Kaavi. I did say that. You are the leader… but think about this.”

“Nothing to think about.” Kaavi said, “Rest up. We’re going to fight in an hour. Let’s hope the three are still alive by then.”

Then he walked away to the cliff, where he sat down on a rock and stared at the river below.

“Egen,” Ruglio started, “I’ll do as he says but… that’s a cyclops. They take down platoons of men on their own. Yeah, that looks like a small one, but their hide is stronger and their one eye makes them angry.”

“I know,” I said, “I know. Fighting them is bad trouble.”

“Egen,” Ruglio said, “I don’t know why you made him leader but... Ghala’s not here. If you wanted to… we’d listen to you. You’ve gotten us out of fights before.”

I thought about it. Kaavi’s decision. I looked at Barth and Yajaira, “You would stay out here, Duchess,” I said, “Barth you’d have to come with us.”

Barth’s face dropped. But he muttered in agreement. I looked at Ynec, “What do you think?”

“Our pack avoids HornEye,” Ynec said, “Hard to kill. Tough to cook.”

I looked at the crowd of boys that was left. They were all scared. This trip had been rough and going into a head on battle was only rattling them more.

“Ruglio…” I looked at him. A fight was a dumb idea. A life-endingly bad idea. Surely, Kaavi would see reason if I talked to him. Because if what Ruglio was saying was true… I couldn’t let that happen to the group. It would be something that could get us sent straight back to the Land of Reeds. If Kaavi decided to give the order to fight… No use dying because of a bad call. Like Ruglio said, he would listen to me. I looked back at Rulgio and with a serious face and said, “He’s the leader. If he tells us to attack we attack… but I can still try to sway him.”

I approached Kaavi, who stared at the depths below.

“I’m not changing my mind.” Kaavi said.

“Kaavi…” I started.

“I’m not. We can’t reason with it. Nothing that strong is reasonable.”

“Kaavi..” I repeated.

“I’m not listening.”

“I’m not asking you to listen. I’m asking for you to let me listen.” I said.

Kaavi looked out into the river in silence.

“Kaavi… Why are cyclopes unreasonable?” I asked.

Kaavi picked up a rock and threw it into the river, “The bandits that destroyed my village… they attacked us with a cyclops.”

“Gods,” I whispered.

“If it was just regular bandits. Our town woulda defended itself, but these ones had the cyclops. One with a yellow eye and a big ax scar on his chest. He went crazy on the village. Crushed houses with one swing of his club. Killed people like they were chickens. I still remember the look on his face when…”

Kaavi began to tear up, “When he killed…”

“Kaavi,” I said, “You don’t have to say it.”

Kaavi’s tears streamed down his face and he tried to hide his sniffles. I wrapped my arms around him, holding him as his stifled sniffles bloomed into full blown wails.

“Kaavi,” I said in a hushed tone, snot ran down Kaavi’s chin. His eyes were reddened as they suffocated with tears, “Kaavi,” I said, “Kaavi, I’m so sorry that happened to your village. I’m so sorry that happened to you. But… If a bunch of kids went after a cyclops don’t you think that would happen again?”

“We can kill him,” he said, “We can get the drop on him. This one’s small.” He cried.

“Maybe,” I said, “Maybe… but you were the only one who survived last time. Do you want to go through that again?”

Kaavi buried his crying head into my shoulder. I held him tighter.

“We need to try,” I whispered, “We need to try to reason with it. Fighting has to be our last resort.”

“This… This…” he tried to get his words out but his collapsed breathing kept stopping him, “This leader stuff is… stuff is hard.”

I let out a rueful laugh and said, “You’re telling me.”

“Let’s try something else.” Kaavi said, “Not fighting, fine. But if we try to reason with it and we fail? We fight and we die. Let’s try something else.”

I nodded my head. He was right. Reasoning with it was faulty at best, “Fine.”

Kaavi wiped the tears away, through shortened breath he said, “Pro- promise me.”

“Promise you what?”

“Pro- pro- promise me that if we we-went with your plan… No one dies.”

I looked right at Kaavi and told him what he needed to hear, “I promise no one’s going to die.”