Oliver Grace wasn't panicking. He told himself that as he jammed the screws and rest of the assembly of the weed whacker into the pockets on his legs. His hands were shaking, but he was acting reasonably. If there was a possible threat, it would be best to leave the area and find true shelter as quickly as possible.

He would be smart, and he would be safe, and he would make it home.

He looked over his temporary campsite with a quick eye. There was nothing to be done about the remains of the fire, and besides that he hadn't really done much here besides cower in the cave like a rat in its hole.

Oliver had collected a decent pile of branches for firewood, and one of the branches he'd found the night before was of a decent length and sturdiness to serve both as a walking stick and a means of self-defense. He picked it up, and with that his meagre preparations were over.

He set off at a decent clip down the slope, stiff shoulders and thighs aching in complaint. Hunger was gnawing at his stomach, although the sensation would go away soon. He wasn't feeling weak yet, but from prior experience knew to expect lethargy and headaches soon.

—

When he reached the road, Oliver knew at once that he was saved. Or at the very least, had got from the frying pan into the fire. This was a land was inhabited by thinking, walking, civilized beings.

He'd assumed that the gravity he was experiencing meant they'd likely be roughly his size or smaller, but he hadn't known. Now, the familiar dimensions of the muddy, unpaved, yet clear way cutting through the trees before him bore that conjecture out. Better yet, the wheel ruts in the road bespoke some degree of skill at construction – wagons, at the least.

The road would have been much easier going than pushing through the brush, roots, stones, and detritus of the forest floor, but he had no way of knowing whether it was a commonly used road. The training drilled into him prioritized evasion, at least until he had more knowledge of the situation.

So it was with a regretful glance at the road that he set his shoulders and made his way back into the woods, keeping it in view but ensuring that he was out of sight from anybody who might come down it.

By now, it was noon, and the thirst was a raging fury within him. Unfortunately, even if he dared to drink the water of this land, he'd left the last stream behind him half a day's walk back. He tried to put it to the back of his mind, turning his thoughts to home as he trudged through the woods.

Joanna by now would have called the police and both of their families would know he was missing. They wouldn't have suspected him of leaving on purpose – he was nothing if not thorough, and departing home in the middle of the afternoon was not a surefire way to escape – but it was closing in on the forty eight hour mark, and they both knew that that was when the recovery rate in missing persons cases fell sharply.

He wondered what was going through her mind right now; at two months pregnant she was feeling tired and anxious enough as it was. Perhaps in a best case scenario she'd assume he'd been called away on a top-secret mission by the government. They'd joked about it before, but it was never truly within the realms of probability. No, she was the pragmatic sort, not given to flights of fancy. She'd likely believe him to have been abducted and be waiting for the ransom note.

Or – heaven forbid – perhaps she'd suspect a return of the post-traumatic stress. He'd had a rough year or two, but that was well and truly in his past, and they both knew that.

It was wrapped up in these thoughts as he was that he failed to realize that there was a group of people coming up on the road behind him. They were almost upon him before he realized that they were there, but as soon as he did he threw himself to the ground behind a fallen tree and lay frozen, not daring to even breath.

How could he have been so stupid? He cursed himself out mentally even as he ticked seconds by in his head. He'd become conscious of a branch poking into his side even with the rush of adrenaline surging through his veins by the time that he dared peek above the log, only to be overwhelmed by a wave of confusion.

A military force of some kind was wending its way down the road, led at the head by four figures mounted on honest-to-goodness horses. Dull gray plates of some kind of armor obscured the otherwise humanoid figures as they rode by, helmed heads scanning the surroundings with trained discipline.

As soon as he saw them scanning watchfully he crouched down again, thinking furiously. Horses. People. Or at least people-shaped creatures. And yet – he was not on Earth. He shoved the conjecture aside, risking another peek around the side of the log as they passed by him, perhaps fifty or sixty paces distance. The undergrowth and trees concealed him well enough, and he spared a moment to be grateful he'd remembered to stash his orange gloves in his pocket.

Behind the riders marched a column of some forty or fifty troops in excellent order, the stamping of metal boots in unison audible even at this distance and despite the mud. They clad in the same dull gray armor plating as the riders and were bearing long triangular shields, rounded at the top. Despite this, they were moving at a good clip, just shy of a jog.

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

The sharply angled visors they wore were up and he could see faces, human faces, beneath them. Vaguely European features, mostly young to middle-aged men, all cleanly shaven.

Why they were jogging in metal armor, in the noon-day heat, he couldn't fathom; the stuff had to weigh at least fifty or sixty pounds. And they had no backpacks or other gear, though at their sides were visible short swords and a few other odds and ends he couldn't make out through the trees.

It was clear that this was an army, and a well-disciplined and trained one at that. And they were in a land foreign to them, or at least one in which they expected to be attacked, possibly ambushed.

It was that thought that settled it; he crouched down again behind his handy trunk and waited until the rhythmic marching disappeared down the road. He didn't want to be mistaken for an ambush. He hadn't seen rifles, but had no doubt that such a formidable-looking force had a way of attacking at range. Their armor was a far cry from the bullet-resistance fatigues he'd worn, but looked functional and designed for a specific purpose. Perhaps the ridges and contours worked in would serve to deflect ranged munitions equally well. Perhaps not. Perhaps they were a pre-industrial force.

He waited for another twenty or thirty minutes, not even moving to avoid the stick poking out of his side. Just before he resolved to rise to his feet, he heard the sound of more horses coming up the road; outriders, scouts following behind the column, moving with a caution mirroring the rest of the troop.

It was just a single horse and rider this time. The rider had their visor down, and their helmeted head was scanning the surroundings with an almost robotic precision. Its gaze seemed to linger on him for just the barest fraction of a moment, but before his heart had a chance to seize up it was past him and moving along, unconscious of his presence.

After that, he waited a little while longer, then stood, stiff muscles complaining, and hoisted the weed whacker onto his shoulder. He followed the direction the soldiers had gone, carefully keeping fifty or sixty paces to the side of the road and banishing all thought from his mind, even as his throat seemed to close in from all sides in an agony of dryness.

His focus on the surroundings, he crept down the road, moving agonizingly slowly, until at some time in the late afternoon, nearly early evening, when the two suns above were in unison descending towards the tops of the trees, he came upon the village.

A picket wall made of wood surrounded a small cluster of humble wooden buildings with thatched roofs. A well stood at the center of a square in the center of the village, which was currently occupied by the bulk of the troops he'd seen marching past earlier.

From his position atop the crest of the hill leading down towards the village, he watched as gray-plated soldiers burst through the doors of the meagre dwellings and hauled out their occupants by force, dragging them by shoulders or hair. The inhabitants of the village were human, or looked that way, slight, with dark hair and bronze skin. They were dressed in course homespun clothing in browns and greens, the color of the forest.

So. An occupation force. He began picking his way down the hill carefully, flitting from tree trunk to tree trunk, unsure of what to do, knowing he could do nothing yet unwilling to let such violence stand unchallenged.

He made it about ten feet before his pragmatic side reined him in viciously and he crouched in the undergrowth, fists clenched at his sides. He wasn't thinking clearly. Weak, hungry, thirsty, he needed to look to his own care before that of others. He could do no good to anybody in this condition, and even less if he got himself killed resisting a highly-armed invasion force already displaying extreme violence. And there was the matter of his wife and child.

He crouched, waiting, still with a good view of the village as the soldiers corralled their captives into the square at the center of the village. One of the soldiers mounted the wooden step around the edge of the well and began shouting.

To his surprise, even at this distance Oliver could make out the words – and to his even greater surprise, a feeling to which he was rapidly becoming accustomed – he could understand them.

"The Emperor has been… most gracious with you. He has been patient. And yet I regret to say, the tithe which was set has still not been shared. In his mercy, he…"

The wind drifted through the trees, carrying the rest of the commander's sentence away, but turned back to his direction in a moment. The speech was tragically predictable, in any case.

"…the last time we will be visiting your pathetic dwelling. Give the Emperor his due, or we will take it."

One of the slender, bronze-skinned villagers stood. A man, with gray in his hair. His words, too, were lost to the wind – but the soldier's response was simply to draw his sword and descend the stairs.

Oliver watched with a mounting sense of horror as the rest of the village stood frozen, stunned. The gray-armored man ran the old man through casually, once, in the chest. He stood for a moment, swaying, before collapsing to the ground.

There was a great outcry, and then chaos erupted. Men, women, and children were running in every direction, yet everywhere there were the gray-plated soldiers, many now with swords drawn too, and in a moment order had been re-established. There was blood on several blades and more bodies on the ground by the time the villagers ceased resisting.

Oliver bore grim witness, unable to look away even as the villagers were lined up. The commander of the group walked down the line, tapping every fifth or sixth person with the flat of his sword regardless of their age or gender. As he did so, the two soldiers at his back drew them out of the line and began another line. Chains and manacles were produced from somewhere, and a line of chained people began to form to the sounds of weeping, screams and shouts from both sides.

Finally Oliver stood. He'd seen enough of this story to know the ending, and it was time he made good his departure. Past time. The plan now was simple: wait until the soldiers left, then find where the villagers kept their drinking water, risk drinking that – he had little choice in this state — and then find a villager roaming far from the village to question.

He began to move stealthily back through the trees, keeping his profile from showing against the sky behind the ridge, and in moments had cleared the hill.

Then he saw the boy.

Bronze skin, slender figure and long dark hair pronounced him one of the people of this land. He stood even with Oliver's shoulder, perhaps thirteen or fourteen years old. The boy was also trying to sneak away and hadn't seen him yet, but even as Oliver registered his presence, the boy looked over and locked eyes with him. He froze, startled, looking for all the world like a deer in the headlights.

Oliver moved first, lunging for him.