"Dump this into their water," the man said to a younger one.
"Won't that poison it?"
One of the other men snickered, and the leader said, "That would be the idea, boy."
"But...but that camp isn't a war party. It's their whole clan, including women and children."
"Women can still fight. Children grow into warriors. We'll no longer share the same land with these trespassers."
"Weren't they here first?"
"Who told you such lies?" the man snarled. "Go back to your momma, boy. You aren't ready to act with men." He turned to the man who'd snickered. "Pour it in their water. Can you do that?"
The man grunted his assent, took a water skin from the leader, and loped off.
The scene flickered, like a movie reel hitting a glitch. Then I was lying in a field, looking up at the bright sun.
"Gabriel?"
He didn't answer. I blinked hard and reached out. I'd fallen on something soft, and when my hand touched down, I felt fur, yet no movement or warmth underneath. A skin? I hoped so, though with my luck I'd landed on a dead animal. I blinked again and turned and...
I let out a shriek, cut short as I clamped a hand over my mouth and scrambled to my feet.
I was lying on the fur-cloaked body of a woman, twisted and contorted, her eyes bulging, dried blood crusting her mouth, both hands clutching her stomach.
A drinking cup lay at her side, next to a plate of half-eaten food. More food lay spilled by her hand.
The water.
They poisoned the water.
Another body lay beside me. A man, hands wrapped around his throat. I turned to look around me and...
Bodies. That's all I saw. The dead. Everywhere.
I closed my eyes, and I heard screams and moans, and a child calling "Mommy!" voice pitched impossibly high with pain. I quickly opened my eyes, and the scene went quiet.
As I looked around, I noticed gaps in those groups of the dead. Untouched and spilled water cups. Those who hadn't been as quick to drink with their morning meal. Those who'd seen what happened. And then...
To my left, the body of a man lay over a woman's, his head nearly cut off by a hatchet blade, his arm still around her. Beyond them, another man lay halfway to the tents, a child in his arms, taken down by a blow from the rear. To my right, a woman had been killed trying to drag a dying man to shelter, her hands still wrapped in his tunic.
That was when I saw Gabriel, standing between the forest and the camp. His gaze was fixed on a body near his feet. It was a girl, no more than eight or nine, who'd been running for the forest. An unarmed child. Cut down by a blow so hard it nearly sliced her in two. And under her? A baby, clutched in her arms.
Gabriel's gaze went from me to the girl and the baby, and though he didn't say a word, I saw them in his eyes.
I don't understand.
Gabriel knew death. He'd defended killers, and he conducted that job with cold detachment. But now he looked at these two victims, and he saw no defense. No way to even attempt one.
"Evil," I said. "This is evil."
He nodded and squinted at the camp. Two ravens circled overhead. For a moment I thought they were scavenging. Crows already worked on a body at the periphery, as if they weren't yet convinced it was safe to move in, all the humans gone.
The ravens flew at the crows, croaking, and the smaller corvids winged off, cawing indignantly. The ravens didn't take over the feast, though. They kept circling the camp, swooping to take a closer look at the carnage and then flying up again, letting out croaks that sounded frustrated, angry.
"Looking for fae," Gabriel murmured.
The ravens were from the Cwn Annwn, seeking evidence of fae-blood victims among the dead so the Huntsmen could exact vengeance for the massacre. Those croaks meant they weren't finding what they needed.