Redemption

Chapter Three

The horse was exhausted by the time they reached Niko's home in the heart of the forest, and Alistair had fallen unconscious. Honestly, Niko was grateful for it but he was worried about the shivering. This man was dressed for summer weather; it was clear that he was a southerner. Alistair was probably beginning to suffer the starting stages of hypothermia and while Niko wanted to extract the arrow shafts from him, losing blood with such a low body temperature could prove to be fatal. Waiting to extract the painful arrows would save his life but would be even more painful the longer they sat in his flesh. Niko set Alistair down on the warm stones in front of the fire before the happily crackling fire and then went back for the shivering horse. The poor creature was a thoroughbred and it didn't have a winter coat. It was a beautiful horse but entirely unsuited for life in the harsh northern wastes.

Niko led the horse inside and went outside to hew a rough water trough from a log and grabbed a bucket, putting some grain into it and setting it before the horse who had taken up to lying beside Alistair on the warm stones, almost at risk of falling into the fire. Niko chuckled softly and crouched beside the beast and pet it, rubbing the chilled skin.

"Poor thing...I bet if you knew you were going to be this cold you would have bucked him off hours ago, hmm?" Niko chuckled softly and after a few more moments of petting the beautiful animal, he turned to Alistair. These two were both incredibly lucky that Niko had come along when he did. Even if the men hadn't killed Alistair, the cold would have. Niko tossed a few more logs onto the fire and waited a few hours for the color to begin returning to Alistair's face.

"This isn't going to be pleasant." Niko murmured as he moved Alistair away from the fire a little bit. Niko took a few deep breaths, concentrating on the power in his blood. Gradually, his tattoos began to glow, brighter lights flowing through the pathways as his blood pulsed through his body. He put his hands on Alistair's wounds, numbing the nerves around them, his hands emitting a soft glow. Niko grasped onto the shaft in his back and pushed the arrow head through until it broke the skin on the other side, his eyes closed as he saw inside the stranger's body to avoid all major arteries and tendons. It was long and tedious work, but eventually the arrow head broke the skin and he pulled it through, freeing Alistair from the painful barb. Thankfully the man was unconscious, otherwise he would have been screaming from the pain.

Niko staunched the flow of blood and pressed clean bandages against the wound, his mind calm and collected. He was always calm when healing - and it wasn't often he was granted the ability to work on another human being. There were a few people who, in return for his abilities, brought him grains and medicines and their silence of what he was to others.

"One more..." Niko murmured and moved down to Alistair's leg. He ripped open his pants around the wound a bit more to give him more room to work. Luckily the arrow had already gone all the way through his leg so Niko was able to simply pull the broken shaft through the rest of the way and rushed to stop the flow of blood. His femoral artery had been nicked. Niko pushed his blood magic into Alistair and focused on repairing the walls of the artery and the bleeding stopped. He sighed and wiped his brow on his forearm. Aesin magic would have been the only hope Alistair had at living. No one else could have stopped the bleeding in time. As it was, he'd lost a fair amount of blood. He would be weak for a few days, but he would live.

Niko sat back, exhausted. Working blood magic on someone who wasn't Aesin or blood kin was difficult. And he didn't need to see the man's tanned skin to know that he wasn't Aesin. Clearly, he had no idea where he was going when he wound up on the ice flats. No one in their right mind went out there. Well...no one that wasn't Aesin.

As far as Niko knew...he was the only Aesin left.

Isa hopped up onto her perch and gave a soft cry. Niko looked at her and nodded, taking Alistair's pulse and found it to be quite weak. He hadn't warmed up enough yet. Cursing softly, Niko moved several blankets and furs down in front of the fire and then picked up Alistair gently, lying him down in the bed Niko had made. Niko stripped down to his deerskin pants and laid underneath the covers as well, pulling Alistair towards his warm body. Skin to skin contact was the fastest way to heat the body back up and with his magic...it would save his life.