Predator If It Bleeds 36

Disguised by the falling ice, Kata'nu closed the distance in the wall. They carried themselves at the ready, clearly expecting conflict. Inside the enclosure, men cried out, and the leader led
his shouting travelers through the gate. Kata'nu followed them. He could see the heat signature of many men pouring out from the large structure farthest north, still crying as they ran toward the travelers. Most carried no weapons. Many moved unsteadily, falling and staggering. Kata'nu veered away from the travelers, toward one of several massive heaps of dead herd animals, swollen with rot, dead men piled on top of them. The travelers circled up, facing outward, screaming like Unblooded at their first kill.

The men from the structure ran and stumbled into view...and Kata'nu could see that there was something wrong with them. More than half wore little or no clothing. Many shook as if from fever, and fell down, and were trampled by others.
Their legs were striped with thin waste and they made strange faces as they shouted and called. Sickness. Kata'nu checked his mask's filter read, as he had regularly since leaving the ship. The humidity was up, ice falling ever more heavily from the sky, but he didn't see-There. A high concentration of organic material was in the air, some kind of alkaloid; the makeup was that of a
fungal spore.

The fields outside the village were cultivated, heavy with cereal grasses; had their crops become infected? Their meat? Had they ingested the spore, or was it carried on the air? The first sick men had reached the travelers. Screaming, weaponless, they attacked, and the travelers stepped
fearlessly into the fight. Kata'nu trilled and shifted on his feet, excited to watch the unfolding battle-until he realized that a number of the charging sick men had abruptly changed direction and were running toward him.-pg.196-197 chpt.7