Chapter 1

James looked down at the textbook, trying to care.

It was hard. Damned hard. Not the contents of the large hardcover book. No, not that, although he found math annoying. It was the caring. He was, or would be, a history major. Maybe. He wasn't sure. It was only freshman year, so, really, no hurry on that. But whatever his major, it would not be math based. That was for certain. He knew his strengths, or at least interests, and they did not lean towards equations and cosines. So why was he forced to take this one stinking course?

Somewhere, his parents were laughing at him.

James pushed away from the desk, letting his body fall back against the chair. His roommate was gone. That was a blessing, at least. The guy was an idiot. Or at least annoying. They were the same in his book. The only thing worse than studying math was being interrupted while you tried to study math. Now, at least, he could enjoy sitting there ignoring his studies. It felt good. Like freedom.

Slowly, he let his chair swivel back and forth. All chairs should swivel. A chair that did not move was, really, not a chair. Rock, swivel, whichever way it chose to swing. Probably not both. A chair that was bi in that regard tended to be unstable.

Not unlike certain people.

James put a hand to his forehead. He had to stop dwelling on that. Not his fault. She said she was bi going in. That the person she broke up with him for was a girl was NOT a reflection on his manhood, his virility. As far as he could tell, Sue never had any problems with him in that department. No. This was just ... emotional.

Which, in a way, was worse.

Maybe she'd come back. That was possible. This was college, after all. The first time she'd been able to, openly, date another girl, instead of sneaking around. Could he blame her for taking that opportunity?

Yes. Yes he could.

Somewhere in the dorm, there was a loud, low noise. The lights flickered.

Great. Why had he decided to live on campus? He could be at home. In his room. With is parents downstairs...

Ah. Right.

This wasn't much better, though. He had freedom in exchange for distractions. Like the one in the hall. Someone was running. Many people. It wasn't that late, true, just barely dark outside, but still...

A girl screamed outside his door.

That ... could not be good. James spun his chair around, standing. It had to be something stupid. Nobody would be attacking a girl at 7 PM in the dorm hallway.

The door to his dorm room burst open, the lock offering no resistance. Men burst in. Adults, a swirl of dark leather and tarnished steel. Dirty. Grizzled. They were armed, not with guns, but swords, clad in some sort of old armor, metal chest plates over dark red jackets, a stylized eagle on some of their chests. Re-Enactors from Fort Niagara? Cosplay fans from some show he had never heard of? Behind them, James saw one with his hand over the mouth of a girl from down the hall. Her eyes were wide in terror behind her large glasses.

His own were probably just as terrified.

One of the intruders quickly moved to stand before the freshman. He was middle-aged, black hair white at the temples. Sharp blue eyes set into a worn face searched for something in James' soul. He held something in his left hand.

"Are you James, son of Fredrick, son of Fredrick, son of Leszek, son of Fredrick?"

He knew two of those names. Well, one, as that name was used three times. He blinked, hands gripping the chair behind him for support. His father had been Fredrick Jr, so...

"Um ... yes..."

The object in the man's hand vanished, passed to someone else. He grabbed James by the arm, grip strong, but somehow without malice.

"Thank God we found you." The man turned, expression hard. "Close in! We're going!"

James saw the girl pushed away, the men still in the hall evacuating it into his room. An alarm sounded, someone somewhere realizing something was horribly wrong. He found himself surrounded.

"Sergeant, now!"

The room flashed. James squeezed his eyes shut, lights dancing before them. The blaring alarm went dead.

James opened his eyes.

The room was gone. He saw trees. Pines.

That ... was not right.

The soldiers surrounding him let out a collective sigh. James saw them relax, felt the grip on his arm release. Here, in the star lit night among the trees, they were no longer strange anachronisms, costumed madmen. The world and they were one.

One what, he did not know. The change from the florescent light of his room had his eyes blinking, adjusting. So, too, his mind tried to do the same. He was ... somewhere else. Like in some movie. Could he accept that? Was this real?

James kicked at the pine needle covered ground. His sneakers pushed up a clump of dark earth.

It seemed solid enough.

"Your Grace."

James looked up. The soldier was looking at him. So, too, were the others. He looked around. There were a dozen of them, he now saw. Well, maybe ten. Mentally, he was still not all there. He blinked. That helped, some. Turning back to the man who seemed to be in charge, it dawned on him that the man had been addressing him. James wet his lips.

"What?"

"Are you all right, Your Grace?"

"Your..." He put a hand to his head. "No. I'm not OK. What the fuck is going on? Who are you?"

"I am Captain Putaski, Your Grace. Commander of what is left of the Royal Guard." He bowed his head. James just stared at him.

"That's not helping, you know."

"I'm sorry, Your Grace."

"My name is James. I'm nobody's grace."

"I'm afraid you are, and I apologize. Given who you are, what we have done is ... presumptuous. Once this all has settled, you may deal with me as you wish. Just spare my men, as they acted under my orders."

James cast his eyes around him again. He could make them out better. Soldiers, a few young, a few old. He had seen movies. News shows. Footage of real soldiers in combat, interviews with them afterwards, or even during. These men ... were real. He felt that, somehow. They had fought. Killed. Seen their friends die. They looked at him with a strange mixture of suspicion, disdain, and hope. The last was something he had never expected to inspire.

"We should get a move on." The oldest of the soldiers was talking to the Captain. He had a bushy mustache, under a rather large nose. "I don't like being away from camp."

The Captain nodded.

"Your Grace, if it pleases you, I will tell you what I know as we walk. We have about a half hour journey ahead of us before we are safe."

Safe. This world wasn't safe. That was not good. But, then, how safe had Dorothy been in Oz? Not very, but for a pre-teen she had handled it well. Surely at eighteen he could at least meet her standards.

"Sure. OK. Just use small words, for now."

He was the King.

King.

"We don't know how they did it," Captain Putaski was saying. He walked beside James, the others forming a protective circle around the pair. One, seemingly close to James' own age, was up ahead. Scouting, he assumed. That was about the extent of his tactical knowledge, gained from movies of questionable accuracy. "We knew the army was coming, of course. You can't hide something that large as it crosses the world. But when the entire royal quarters burst into flames..." The man shook his head. "There was nothing we could do. King Lawenza was dead. The Queen, the children ... all gone."

James noticed the man was rather matter of fact in his description. As if the loss of royalty was an inconvenience, rather than tragedy.

"So what am I?"

"We don't know." James couldn't help but smile. Honesty like that could be trusted. "There's only one magical item in the entire kingdom, which up till now was kind of pointless. It points to the next in line to the throne. That is always the eldest son, so it would just point to him. Meaningless."

"Didn't it," a soldier walking beside them put in, "show that Haym was a bastard?"

"We already knew that," the Captain growled. "He would have made a better king than ... well, who we got. The point, though, is this time it gave us your name. Your lineage. And, this is key, it took us to you and brought us back." The man shook his head. "We weren't really expecting that."

"Neither was I," James said dryly. "How do I get home?"

"You don't, Your Grace. As I said, I'm sorry. We brought you here to be our King against your will. If we had thought about it..."

James couldn't help it. He barked out a laugh.

"Now that you've seen me, and know I'm not King material, you mean!"

"Yes."

"Don't blame you. Is there at least some prophesy about me saving the world to give me some hope that this isn't a horrible mistake?"

"Prophesies are for the desperate," scoffed one of the soldiers. The Captain nodded.

"Yes. So, while I wish to God that there was one for us, unfortunately we are on our own."

There had been some possibility, before, that he was being conned. That, somehow, he had been drugged, taken from his dorm, and woken in some patch of woods nearby.

The sight before him dispelled that hope.

As his companions and/or guards brought him out of the trees, the camps spread out before him. A road, probably dirt, split the long meadow. On either side, wooden wagons, pulled into circles. He saw campfires. Heard voices, men, women, children. From the small rise he stood on, he reckoned he could see thousands of people. People who ... what? What were they, to him? Or him to them?

"Your people," Captain Putaski said. "All who escaped from Nowy Kiev."

"What happened?" James took a few steps forward, as if that would bring understanding. The Captain sighed.

"We failed. Nowy Kiev had withstood sieges before, when we had allies, but our city was not ready. Our people were not ready. I..." James turned as the man paused. The Captain's gaze was to the west. "I ordered an evacuation, before the Elvish devils could cross the Wisla, cut the road. We fought to buy time, not save our home. Every second sent more families out into the wilderness."