“The wood is soaked,” he said. “It’s going to be some time before we can get fires going. There are babies that will freeze to death before then.”

Prentiss looked at the prowlers lying in the snow and motioned toward them. “They’re warm. Have their guts and lungs taken out.”

“What⁠—”

Then Chiara’s eyes lighted with comprehension and he hurried away without further questions.

Prentiss went on, to make the rounds of the guards. When he returned he saw that his order had been obeyed.

The prowlers lay in the snow as before, their savage faces still twisted in their dying snarls, but snug and warm inside them babies slept.

The prowlers attacked again and again and when the wan sun lifted to shine down on the white, frozen land there were five hundred dead in Prentiss’s camp: three hundred by Hell Fever and two hundred by prowler attacks.