Chapter 4: The Price of a Life

The warrior, Kaelen, stared at Leo for a long moment, his slate-gray eyes weighing the situation. He looked down at the pale, unconscious elf, then back at the strangely dressed outworlder who had just performed what looked like a desperate, mad ritual. Kaelen had seen battle-mages and hedge-witches apply their trade. Their work was accompanied by glowing lights and whispered words. This was different. It was raw, immediate, and somehow more visceral.

"There's a camp," Kaelen finally grunted, making his decision. "Half a day's march from here. Belongs to my guild. The Iron Banners."

"Is it clean?" Leo asked, his tone sharp.

Kaelen scoffed. "It's an adventurers' outpost, not a noble's palace. It's cleaner than this forest, I can promise you that."

"It'll have to do," Leo said, his mind already racing. Half a day. 10, maybe 12 hours. She can't bleed for that long. The pressure bandage will soak through. The risk of infection…

"I'll make a litter," Kaelen said, already turning to retrieve the axe from his pack. He was a man of action, not words. While he worked, efficiently felling two straight saplings and lashing them together with rope and the Gravehound's own tough hide, Leo focused on his patient.

Her name, he discovered, was Elara. It was delicately tooled into the leather of a small pouch on her belt. He monitored her pulse, the rhythm a fragile drumbeat of life against his fingertips. It was still too fast. Her skin was clammy. Shock was a relentless predator, and he was fighting it with sticks and scraps of cloth.

The Echo lingered at the back of his mind, a low hum of static. The bridge, the rain, Mia's face—it was all there, waiting. He fought it down, focusing on the here and now. One patient at a time. Do no harm. It was the only mantra he had left.

Kaelen finished the litter with practiced speed. "We need to move. More of those things could be hunting in this territory."

Together, they carefully transferred Elara onto the makeshift stretcher. She was light, almost bird-like, but it was still an awkward, two-man job. Leo took the front, Kaelen the back, and they set off, leaving the corpse of the Gravehound to the forest's scavengers.

The journey was a grueling, silent ordeal. The terrain was unforgiving, a constant series of inclines and roots that threatened to trip them. Every jolt sent a fresh wave of anxiety through Leo. He could feel the blood seeping through his makeshift bandage, warm and wet against his hand where he held the litter's frame.

After an hour, Kaelen broke the silence. "What you did back there. The cloths, the pressure. What was it? Some kind of new-world sorcery?"

Leo almost laughed. "No. It's called medicine. First aid."

"Medicine is for priests with holy water and alchemists with potions," Kaelen countered, his voice full of skepticism. "Not... that." He gestured with his head toward Elara. "That was something else."

"Where I come from, we understand how the body works," Leo explained, picking his way over a moss-covered log. "The blood flows through veins and arteries like rivers. If you get a hole in one, you have to plug it, or the river runs dry."

Kaelen was quiet for a long time after that, processing the simple, yet revolutionary, analogy.

As dusk began to settle, painting the purple sky in shades of orange and deep crimson, Elara began to stir. Her eyelids fluttered, and a low moan escaped her lips.

"She's waking up," Kaelen said, a note of surprise in his voice.

"That's not good," Leo shot back immediately. "Pain is the enemy of rest. And if she moves too much, the clot could break."

As if on cue, Elara's eyes opened. They were hazy with pain, but they focused on Leo. "You..." she whispered, her voice a dry rasp. "The beast..."

"It's dead," Leo said softly, trying to keep his voice as calming as possible. "You're safe. Just lie still."

Her eyes widened slightly as she took in her situation, strapped to a crude litter and being carried through a darkening forest by two strangers. She tried to sit up, a reflexive panic taking hold. "Where—"

Pain lanced through her, and she cried out, her back arching. The movement was exactly what Leo had feared. He felt a fresh, hot gush of blood against the bandage.

"Damn it!" he cursed, lowering the litter. "Kaelen, hold her down! Gently!"

He was losing her. Her pulse was becoming faint again. He pressed harder on the wound, but it wasn't enough. Desperation clawed at him. In his world, he'd have a dozen options. IV fluids, surgical clamps, coagulants. Here, he had nothing.

"The potion," Kaelen said, holding out the small clay flask he'd offered before. "You said no, but she's dying anyway. What's the harm now?"

Leo stared at the flask. He was a man of science, of evidence-based practice. This was voodoo, snake oil. But science had abandoned him here. He was out of options. The alternative was to watch her die, and the Echo was already beginning to whisper at the edges of his consciousness, hungry for another failure.

Do no harm. But what if doing nothing was the greatest harm of all?

"What's in it?" Leo demanded.

"Crushed Sun-Lichen and powdered Rubycap mushroom," Kaelen said. "It's a standard clotting agent. Not strong enough to seal a wound like that from the outside, but it thickens the blood."

Thickens the blood. A coagulant. The term was primitive, but the principle was sound. It was a terrifying gamble. He had no idea what the dosage was, or what side effects it might have. It could save her. It could kill her faster.

He looked at Elara's face, now ghostly pale in the light of the twin moons. He saw Mia. He saw the car falling.

He couldn't watch it happen again.

"Give it to me," Leo said, his voice grim. He uncorked the flask. It smelled earthy and vaguely sweet. "Elara," he said, gently tilting her head. "You need to drink this. It will help."

She looked at him, her violet eyes full of fear and pain, but she saw the certainty in his. She nodded weakly. He carefully poured a small amount of the thick, red liquid into her mouth. She coughed, but she swallowed.

For a terrifying ten seconds, nothing happened. Then, she shuddered violently. Her breathing hitched.

"What's happening?" Kaelen demanded, his hand resting on the hilt of his sword.

"I don't know," Leo admitted, his own heart pounding.

Then, as quickly as it started, the shuddering stopped. Elara’s breathing, though still shallow, seemed to even out. Leo kept his hand on the wound. The steady, relentless seeping of blood began to slow. And then, incredibly, it stopped.

Leo stared at his hands, at the potion, at the unconscious elf. He had just witnessed magic. And it worked.

He felt a dizzying sense of vertigo. He was a master of his craft, a repository of centuries of medical knowledge. And he had just been saved by a handful of crushed fungus and lichen.

He wasn't just in a new world. He was in a world with new rules, and he was terrifyingly ignorant of them.