Herbalists' Cache tell me tell me tell me, come on tell me the answer

Tuathal happened upon the herbalist's cache by luck of the draw: he had chosen a mountain, crossed said mountain, and descended same mountain without whim for where he was headed, or really a care to know. He wore the vest of a roaming vagrant, and his badges were proof that he'd well earned the title, his form, tall and rangy, his fur, wild and unkempt. There was little need to take care of oneself when there was no one to care.

His earthy scent felt out of place in this forest of aromatics. Like a bum who wandered on the wrong side of Hastings -- wrong, only for him. Cobblestone streets and trees alive with man-made stars was no world for the likes of him.

But Tuathal stayed anyway, for as far as he could tell, there was no one else here. No one to pass him like he was an invisible, no one to shoo him away. The scent of herbs returned him to an easier time, and he thought of Ceara again... somehow, this place reminded him of her...

The scream should have been more jarring. Birds erupted from the trees, and flurried away, and then the forest grew eerie quiet. He lifted his head with quite the delayed response, turned his ears to the source. And sighed.

Shoot, he didn't really want to know what that was all about, but something moved him forward -- a pattern of who he had once been, before his sister's death. Yet he sought the source with a saunter. What he would find on the other end remained uncertain (always did, didn't it?), and he didn't busy his mind with the could-be's and what-if's. Useless to worry like that, he'd deal when he found whoever it was had shrieked, and he would find what he found -- though admittedly, as the forest took on a metallic sting, he realized, kind of too late, that he probably should have prepared...

He caught sight of the living body through the trees. Something else lay in a decomposed heap on the ground. Blood stained the ground around them both, and Tuathal nearly gagged when he almost stepped in a big ol' bloody paw print with his own two paws.

His fur ruffled right on up, and the profanities slipped, "Well, shit, man!" and he stumbled aside, comedic at any other time, his irked out gaze dancing along the ground to avoid any more of the splatter. "What the hell happened here? What the hell is this?"