"What is your name, soldier?"

"Oliver Grace," responded Oliver easily, updating his threat assessment of the commander. He was not only casually violent, he was intelligent, had read Oliver like an open book, knew he was military from the way he stood. That meant that his casual violence served a purpose. As would all of his actions.

"You know, Oliver" – getting the pronunciation oddly wrong, starting with an 'oh' instead of an 'ah', "resisting the lawful collection of tithes by troops authorized by the Emperor's own hand could be construed as high treason."

Oliver said nothing.

"I could have you strung up on the spot." His eyes narrowed, and Oliver realized that the captain was enjoying this, this game of cat and mouse, this game where he had the control.

Oliver had nothing to say to that, either.

He drew closer to Oliver, a move which only served to highlight how much taller Oliver was. Yet he didn't appear any less threatening for it. "Where is the rest of your troop, soldier?"

"I'm not a soldier anymore," Oliver said.

"My man says you attacked. Why?"

"He was in the way."

He leaned forward. "What are you doing here?"

"I was just leaving."

A tension crackled between the two of them, a contest of wills, the captain seeking to impose his will on Oliver, to intimidate him, and Oliver throwing off that will, refusing to be cowed.

He'd dealt with this kind of man before. The captain needed to maintain his authority, needed to be seen as having control. He ruled through fear, not respect, and he liked it.

Oliver stepped back. He modulated his voice, shrugging and trying for a reasonable tone without seeming to plead, raising his hands, palms up. "Look, I don't want any trouble. If you let me go, you'll never see me again."

The captain nodded. "I could do that. But that would set an example. People might start to think they could get away with assaulting my men."

Oliver gambled. "If you kill me, you'll never know where I came from."

"Why," a pause, emphasis, "are you here?" Naked threat had entered the captain's tone now. He wasn't used to being defied. Behind him the two men shifted. A couple of other soldiers wandered over, watching with interest.

Time to push the bluff. "I'm on vacation," Oliver said with sarcasm.

The tip of the captain's sword, still red with the blood of the village elder, was at his throat in an instant, before Oliver could so much as step back. He held very still. The sword didn't move.

"I will ask you one more time," said the captain, "and if I do not hear an answer I like, I will kill you. Why are you here?"

Oliver knew that no answer he gave would satisfy the captain, so he didn't say anything. Adrenaline was making his toes and fingertips tingle. He started running through combat scenarios.

The captain was wearing the same strange armor as the rest, and if he weighed as much as the other guy taking him on was a fool's errand.

But Akin had shifted a few feet to his right and the guy on the horse was looking at the captain, not at him.

Then he realized how what the rope reminded him of, and the memory almost made him smile. Almost. Wonder Woman's lasso, the golden glowing magic rope of truth. A childhood dream, realized.

Magic.

Or a sufficiently advanced technology.

Either way, he didn't know how it worked. It was quick. He figured it required line of sight. So, a few steps back, throw himself behind Akin, break line of sight. Then a dodge backwards behind the rider, startle the horse, and break for the line of houses behind him.

After a few moments the captain, seeing that he wasn't going to answer, abruptly dropped his sword. He turned, packing that anger away professionally once he saw it wouldn't be of any use. Intelligence in a violent man was a scary thing.

Oliver carefully didn't let out a sigh of relief, his whole body relaxing. That had been a near thing. He'd felt he'd had a read on the man, but for a second thought perhaps he'd overestimated the cruel intelligence peering out from behind those cold blue eyes.

"Bukir, give me a scan of his system and get him chained up."

A man had approached silently from the left. Smaller, slender, the same gray armor, but he moved with a grace that belied its weight. Dark skin and narrow features marked him from the rest.

Now he raised his hand, pointed his palm straight at Oliver. He didn't read any murderous intent so he didn't flinch. Bukir muttered a few words under his breath, then looked confused.

"Captain, he doesn't have a reading."

The captain frowned. "Where are you from?"

Oliver didn't answer. He was in control of the situation now. The captain had backed down. And he had plenty of experience that said answering questions he didn't understand was a bad idea. Too, the captain was starting to annoy him. Bullies always did.

Yet another carbon-copy European looking soldier came up behind him and whispered in his ear. Captain nodded and shrugged, looked to Oliver's right. "Akin, get him in the line with the other savages."

"Ok, let's go, let's go," said Akin from somewhere behind him. Oliver shrugged and went.

—

They had the column marching shortly, quick and efficient. Oliver was chained towards the end, with the boy to his right. The soldiers knew what they were doing, had done it plenty of times before. There were no surprises for them. Pretty soon they were moving out, even though the suns were almost set.

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They marched for a couple of hours along the road, back up the way they'd come, back past the spot where Oliver had first seen them.

It was much easier on the road than it had been in the forest, which was good, because he was tired.

If he'd had food and plenty of water it wouldn't have been a problem. As it was, he was barely keeping to his feet and had to resist sinking down gratefully when they finally stopped, ground barely visible beneath his feet in the fast-waning dusk.

They got off the road at a place that had been cleared a little way back, forming an open area covered with chewed up long grass, dark loam showing through underneath. In the open area was a palisade, a ring of sharpened wooden stakes set into the ground pointing outward. The wood was freshly hewn.

The newly made slaves in his column didn't seem to share his fatigue, but there was very little talking. They mostly looked at each other dully. Shock had set in, hadn't let up yet for most of them.

The soldiers didn't care that they were all chained to each other and busied themselves with setting up camp and watch.

Oliver didn't have much in the way of a choice where he sat, chained at the hands with the boy and with a chain of three or four feet running to the slaves in front of him, but any ground was better than none. He was too far from the trees for an escape; all of them were.

Cook fires were lit and shortly a watery stew was cooking. They made all the villagers stand back up and go through in a line to get some in carved wooden bowls they got from somewhere, carved wooden cups too.

He took his from the young soldier who held it out with a neutral expression, looking as fresh as if he hadn't marched all day in sixty pounds of metal, and enslaved a village to boot. He didn't drink immediately, struggling to balance his bowl with his hand chained to the boy. The boy didn't take any food, moving slowly and staring ahead without seeing.

"Take some food," he said.

The boy looked at him, didn't move. "Eat something. Keep your strength up," he said.

The chain pulled tight on their hands as the slave in front of them moved forward and they were past the food station before the boy pulled himself together.

Soldiers watched dispassionately as they moved on, without a glance of sympathy or of discomfort. They were all the same, hardened, without care. They'd sleep fine tonight. He'd be lucky if he slept a wink, though at least he could be sure of protection against whatever had snuck into his camp the previous night.

They sat back down where they'd been before and he stared at the water like it was the most precious thing he'd ever seen. After a moment he picked it up with both hands and took a small sip. There was no other option.

It tasted pretty much like water, clean, perhaps slightly tinny. The relief was intense. He took another sip, slowly, carefully, rolling it around in his mouth like a fine scotch.

Then he intentionally poured the rest of the water out. It was like biting off a finger. But if he didn't, he'd have drank all the rest just now. He had to be sure it wouldn't cause him problems. He wouldn't have a choice tomorrow, but he could afford to play it safe for one more night.

After that, he scooted forward, laid down flat on his back on the loamy earth, closed his eyes, and was dozing within moments.

The night was quiet save for the shifting of soldiers on watch, and he allowed himself a couple of chunks of deep sleep, knowing that he'd need the energy for the march the next day.

At some point dew began to gather and he shifted, uncomfortable, cold and wet. But they hadn't been provided with tents or blankets, so the best he could do was curl into a ball on the loamy soil, hoping not to be bitten too badly by insects.

—

He woke to the sound of shouting, metal clanking and movement around him. Morning sunlight shone down into his eyes and he smelled wood smoke. The cook fires were going again, the soldiers breaking down camp quickly around them. They had set up tents at some point, oiled white canvas a-frames, and they were taking them down as he watched.

He rolled onto his back, stretched as much as he could. Beside him the boy was awake, watching everything with a wary intensity that had been suppressed last night but was fully awake this morning.

In the food line Oliver had no need to remind him to eat. Oliver himself took food and water, ate and drank both since his stomach was fine. The slaves relieved themselves where they stood, then they were marching not long later.

The dew steamed away as the morning heat bore down on them intensely, forming a mist that hung low over everything. The mystery of the forest to either side of the path, old growth, trees bigger and wilder than the trees of New England, was accentuated by the mist swirling through it.

Soon enough, as the day wore on, that burnt off and the mud of the road began to harden and dry, forming a shell on top that gave way to soft wet earth beneath as they walked.

They ate as they moved, food and water procured from somewhere Oliver didn't see and passed out amongst the slaves in the same wooden crockery as the previous night.

Oliver ate and drank again, feeling the strength seeping through him and a much-missed warmth in his stomach. It buoyed his spirits considerably. The other villagers might be experiencing the greatest misfortune of their lives, but for him this was salvation.

In the evening, they settled again in another glen set beside the path, this time earlier in the day, before dusk had truly set in. The soldiers grumbled as they set about chopping trees and building a palisade; apparently they had made poor time with the slaves hobbled behind them and failed to reach their previous camp.

Oliver didn't see the captain again, would have had trouble picking him out from the group with his visor down. No insignia marked him out, no fancy helmet or pauldrons to distinguish him from his fellows.

This was a group accustomed to guerrilla attacks targeting their officers, it seemed. They were operating pretty much by the book, keeping close together, watching and patrolling in pairs around the camp, keeping their command structure invisible to outsiders.

He wondered if they would be attacked before they reached their destination.

—

The next few days quickly settled into a routine. Up in the morning, breakfast, march until lunch when food and water were passed out on the move, then stop for dinner and wait while the soldiers built up a camp around them.

They worked every night through same disciplined motions, making quick work of the business of chopping down trees and throwing up a palisade and tents while the cook fires turned out another meal.

Blisters on his feet came and went, crusting his socks with blood and pus. His lawn care boots weren't meant for hiking in. He tried to wash his feet and the socks at night, worried about infection, but soon gave up. There wasn't enough water.

They were not attacked, and the march went uneventfully. The slaves did not attempt to escape, choosing instead for the most part to bear their captivity in stoic silence. Oliver said nothing and was not spoken to for days.

Finally, late in the afternoon on the fifth day, they turned past a bend in the road and were greeted with the sight of a checkpoint: a group of soldiers, glad in the same dull gray plate, sitting beside the road at a makeshift table, with a horse tied up to a nearby tree.

Some of the other soldiers were chatting, others were gambling as they watched and waited. As the column drew up to them they shouted greetings to one another, exchanged a few jokes, and passed by without trouble.

It soon became clear that they were outer sentries for a much larger army, for as they went down the road they passed into an encampment, with more soldiers and tents appearing off the road in the woods around them.

Soon, their company drew to a halt on the road, waiting, and a messenger with a horse was dispatched.

They cooled their heels on the dry, cracked road for a couple of hours and then, after a different messenger rode up on a beautiful bay roan, began to move again.

It was late afternoon by the time the main body of the army came into sight. The suns were hanging low, getting in Oliver's eyes as they passed through the rest of the trees.

This was a permanent encampment. They'd knocked down a whole section of the forest, turned it into more palisades and plenty of buildings. Tents were laid out with precision and organized into regular rectangles with plenty of space between them.

There were five, maybe six thousand troops here. Sunlight glinted on dull gray metal everywhere, hundreds of little pinpoints of light down in the camp.

Then they stopped. Oliver settled himself into a comfortable stance with the quickly-learned detachment of the professional soldier, who knows that most of his job consists of waiting in the right places.

But the captain with his visor up and another guy came to the end of the line right away and unchained him. The other guy grabbed him by the shoulder and steered him out of line. They didn't say anything, so neither did Oliver.

As the rest of the column got moving again, they led him off by himself somewhere else, deeper into the camp. The moment of reckoning had arrived.