Chapter 3: Do No Harm

The beast, victorious, threw back its head and let out a guttural howl that was cut short by a sound Leo knew intimately: the whistle of a projectile moving at lethal speed.

An arrow, fletched with drab gray feathers, slammed into the creature’s thick neck with a wet thunk. It wasn't a killing blow—the creature's hide was too thick—but it was enough. The beast staggered, shaking its massive head in a spray of blood and drool, its hungry eyes leaving the fallen elf to scan the trees for this new threat.

"Get away from her, you filth."

The voice was low and gravelly, like stones grinding together. A figure emerged from the dense foliage to Leo’s right. He was a man who looked like he’d been carved from old, weathered oak. Tall and broad-shouldered, he wore a patchwork of boiled leather and chainmail that had seen countless battles. A grim, unkempt beard covered the lower half of his face, and his eyes were the color of slate, cold and appraising. In his hands, he held a heavy longbow, another arrow already nocked and aimed.

The bone-carapaced beast, enraged, forgot its previous victim and charged the newcomer.

The man didn't flinch. He held his ground; his eyes narrowed in concentration. He released the arrow at ten yards. It struck the beast in the shoulder joint of its foreleg, causing it to stumble. Before it could recover, the man had dropped his bow and drawn a brutally simple, one-handed arming sword from his hip. It was notched and scarred, a tool for killing, not for show.

He met the beast’s charge with a roar of his own, deflecting a swipe from its bony claws with his sword in a shower of sparks. The sound was like steel on rock. The fight was savage and brief. The man was not a flashy duelist; he was a butcher. He moved with a brutal efficiency, sidestepping, letting the beast’s momentum carry it past him, and hacking at its unprotected underbelly.

The beast shrieked, a high-pitched sound of pain, and twisted, snapping its jaws. The man slammed the pommel of his sword into its snout, then drove the blade deep into its chest as it recoiled. The creature shuddered, a tremor running through its body, and then collapsed into a heap, its lifeblood soaking into the moss.

The woods fell silent again, save for the man’s heavy breathing.

His cold, slate-gray eyes swept over the dead beast, the unmoving elf, and finally landed on Leo. He took in Leo's strange, tattered blue clothing and his petrified stance. The man's gaze wasn't just assessing; it was contemptuous.

“You just going to stand there and watch, outworlder?” he grunted, wiping his bloody sword on the beast’s matted fur. “Or were you waiting for it to finish its meal so you could have the scraps?”

The accusation struck Leo harder than any physical blow. He’s right. The word echoed in the devastated emptiness of his mind. I did nothing. The shame was so potent it was acidic, burning away the last vestiges of his paralysis.

He tore his eyes from the warrior and looked at the silver-haired woman. The man's intervention… she might not be dead. He scrambled to her side, his movements clumsy with desperation.

"Don't bother," the warrior said, his voice flat. "That's a gut wound from a Gravehound's claw. Poisoned. She's gone."

Leo ignored him. His hands, finally obeying his commands, went to her neck. He pressed two fingers against her carotid artery. He felt it. A pulse. Faint, thready, dangerously fast—but it was there.

"She's alive!" The words burst from him, a mix of relief and renewed panic.

The warrior grunted in disbelief, stepping closer. "For a few more minutes, maybe." He unstoppered a small clay flask from his belt. "A healing draught might give her a clean death, at least."

Leo’s training took over completely, a firewall against his emotional chaos. The scene resolved into a problem to be solved. Patient: female, elf-like. Injury: deep, penetrating trauma to the abdomen, possible internal bleeding, high risk of septic shock. The warrior's "healing draught" was an unknown variable. Probably some herbal concoction. Useless against a wound this severe.

"No!" Leo snapped, shoving the man's hand away with surprising force. "Don't give her that. It could make it worse. I need clean cloth, now!"

The warrior stared at him, stunned into silence by the sudden shift from shell-shocked coward to barking commander.

Leo didn't wait for a response. He ripped a long, clean strip from the bottom of his own uniform shirt. The fabric was thin, but it would have to do. He folded it into a thick pad. "Help me. Roll her gently onto her side. Gently! I need to see if there’s an exit wound."

Hesitantly, the warrior complied, his brow furrowed in confusion. Leo's hands were a blur of motion. He assessed the wound. It was nasty, jagged, and already showing a sickly, greenish discoloration around the edges—the poison the warrior mentioned. But it hadn't torn through a major artery. That's why she was still alive.

"Pressure. You," he ordered the warrior, "put your hands here, on this pad. Press down. Hard. Don't let up, no matter what."

The warrior, Kaelen as Leo would later learn his name was, knelt and did as he was told, his large, calloused hands covering Leo’s makeshift bandage. He watched, mystified, as Leo continued his assessment, checking the woman’s pupils, feeling the temperature of her skin, listening to the shallow rasp of her breathing.

"She's going into shock," Leo muttered to himself. "Legs. We need to elevate her legs." He grabbed the warrior's discarded pack and shoved it under the woman's ankles. "You said the claws were poisoned. What kind of poison?"

"Slow-acting," Kaelen said, his voice now laced with a grudging respect. He had seen a hundred men die from wounds less severe than this. He had never seen anyone react like this. "Rots the flesh. Kills you in a day, if the bleeding doesn't do it first."

A necrotizing agent. Fantastic.

Leo knew, with a sinking certainty, that he couldn't fix this here. He had no antibiotics, no surgical tools, no IV fluids. All he was doing was buying time. But time was everything. He had stabilized her. He had stopped the immediate threat.

He looked up, meeting the warrior's gaze. The contempt was gone, replaced by a wary curiosity. For the first time, Leo felt a flicker of something other than failure. It wasn’t hope. It was… purpose.

"She'll die if we leave her here," Leo stated, his voice steady and firm. "The poison, the blood loss… she needs somewhere warm, clean, and safe. I can keep her alive, but I can't carry her. You have to get us there. Now."

The dynamic in the clearing had irrevocably shifted. Moments ago, Leo was the useless bystander, the liability. Now, he was the only thing standing between this woman and death. He was fragile, terrified, and haunted by a power that could paralyze him at any moment.

But he was also, in this strange and brutal world, completely indispensable.