A Leader Born
Chapter 1

Copyright© 2013 by Invid Fan

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."

"How many?" James again looked at the scene before them. The wagon circles bordered the road as far as his eyes could see.

"Ten thousand? Twelve?"

"Ten..." The scope of it! Ten thousand refugees! They had to be fed! Protected! Oh, God!

"Who knows. We're trying to organize. I have troops out on either side, screening our flanks. Riders are going to the hamlets, the farms, telling everyone to strip the barns and join us. We could be twenty thousand by the time we reach the sea."

"The sea?"

"Unless we come up with something better. If the damned Elves cross, pursue, we're in deep trouble. I want to at least get us across the Orlan. That's another week for the head of the column, let alone the rearguard."

James' head was swimming.

"Why? Why did they attack you?"

Another pause. The Captain's gaze was now on the refugees.

"I am a simple officer, Your Grace. I have no part in politics, in Court. They came."

Which means, James assumed, the late king did something stupid. It did matter, if there was to be some sort of peace later, or even a cease fire. But, as James was not their ruler, there was no point in thinking on it further now.


It was not until they were almost at the gap in the nearest wagon ring that James realized what his eyes had been telling him. He was not the most observant, when it came to some things. Fashion, for one. Decor for another. James just didn't care. Thus, it was not until entering the torchlight before the two guards that he recognized the Polish flag.

He stopped. A white stripe over red. A red stylized eagle. The clothing, he now realized, had a medieval quality. He had been writing it off as just generic "fantasy world" stuff, but now he saw eastern European. The guards, he now saw, wore helmets shaped like half a football, leather with metal studs running up its length where the thick strips were fastened together. They held long spears, probably actually pikes. What the difference was, he didn't know.

The Captain stopped beside him.

"Something wrong, Your Grace?"

"I'm just an idiot, that's all. You're from Poland?"

He heard those around him react to that name. The Captain's eyes narrowed.

"Are you not, Your Grace?"

"My ancestors were, yes." They left a hundred years ago, his Great-Great-Grandmother coming over as a little girl. Details he thought could wait till later. "It's just ... well, however I'm related to the royal line, it just got even more complicated."


Passing between the wagons, James gave them a close look. They were large, easily twelve feet long, perhaps more. Thick planks of wood were bolted together, looking more like a structure than a vehicle. The sides were high, taller than a man, with slits in the top half that looked like the notches in castle walls. For arrows, he thought. This was a wagon fort of some kind, set on oversized wheels. As the back came into view, he saw not only did the top half of the wagon fold down, giving it tall but not unreasonable sides for regular use, but half of it could become a ramp allowing easy entry into the wagon. Ingenious.

Not every wagon in the circle was one of these. That made sense. What they had were probably spread out among the caravan. Among the refugees.

On seeing the people huddled inside the protective wall, he despaired. They looked ... beaten. Without hope. They were gathered around a half dozen small fires. Women. Children. Some men, mostly older. Their clothing was a mix of what was probably high fashion and rags. Rich and the poor. Surviving, all other thoughts put aside.

A baby cried. James instinctively looked, following the sound to a pair of figures far from any fire. It cried again, an anguished sound. Ignoring those with him, he made is way around the edge of the camp.

The girl was a few years younger than him, old enough to be the mother of the child, young enough to be a sister. She wore a dark dress, exact color hard to tell in the night. Her hair was black, done up in a long braid down her back. She sat on the ground against a wooden barrel, a crying baby in her arms. It looked no more than a month old, its face scrunched up as it bawled out its need. She was rocking it, her own silent tears shining on her cheeks.

"Don't cry, don't cry, don't cry..." Whether her voice spoke to the babe or herself, James did not know, but he felt his own tears come. Beside her sat a young boy, perhaps ten. His hair was brown, short. He saw James, eyes widening. He shook the girl. Her eyes rose.

They were beautiful.

"Hi," James said, softly, stopping before them. He dropped down to one knee, their eyes following. "My name is James. Do you need anything?"

The girl looked down, her face unsure, confused. James smiled in a way he hoped was comforting.

"That's a beautiful baby. Is he hungry?"

"I don't know," she said, voice almost a whisper. "I think so. He won't stop crying."

"What's his name?" James reached his index finger out. The babe lashed a fist out, hitting it. Sensing this was something new, the crying slackened, fingers moving to encircle the strange digit. James laughed. "His grip is strong."

"Not mine," she said, shaking her head. "We found him. I don't know his name. And I don't have milk. A woman gave us some around noon, but now nobody has any to spare. He keeps crying..."

James turned his head, looking up at the soldiers behind him. This was no way to treat anyone. Captain Putaski nodded slowly, turning to give a command to one of his men. James turned back to the girl.

"We'll find some milk for you. I'm sure it's just a matter of asking the right way. Have you two eaten? Do you need anything?"

The girl looked back at him with wonder. The boy spoke.

"We had some sausage, when the wagons stopped. It was just one link, but it was good. I tried to give a bit to the baby, but he didn't want it so I ate it all."

"What's your name?"

"Felek."

"A good name."

"She's Ewa."

James nodded to her. Her eyes dropped down into her lap. James considered himself a reasonable judge of people. Ewa was a strong girl. Stronger than this. She had just lost hope. Lost sight of why she should fight. He longed to reach out, touch her cheek. He didn't know how these people were, though, about such things. He contented himself with calming the baby.

"You're doing a good job with him."

"Mom would know what to do," Ewa said, eyes on his baby held finger. "Mom always knew."

"Do you have family?"

"We don't know," Felek said. He added his finger to the infants entertainment, the boy grabbing it with his free hand. "Ow. Our dad was helping somewhere. Mom sent us out with the people while she went to try and find him."

There were probably many like this. Many families divided. He thought. Remembered the lists he had seen in news stories.

"Captain. We need to take a census, as soon as possible. Tonight, even."

"Your Grace?"

There was amusement and annoyance in that reply. Who was he, after all, to assume they weren't already doing all they could? Yet, there was this before him. Things were slipping through the cracks.

"I want the names of everyone in the caravan, grouped by family name if possible. Give each circle of wagons a name or number, and take a census of everyone in each. They can do it themselves before they break camp in the morning, or even as they walk. They're to then make one copy to send to me, and then make as many more copies as they can to spread through out the wagons. They'll be posted when we stop tomorrow night, so people can see if their loved ones are alive somewhere ahead or behind them."

"I don't see the need..."

"You are also," James continued, turning to look at the soldier, ignoring the amazement on the two siblings' faces, "to mark on those lists craftsmen whose services we may need. Carpenters, smiths, whatever. Also locate the orphans, the abandoned children. So we know where to get supplies to. I don't want people starving a half mile behind those with plenty."

James held the man's eyes. He did not know these people. Was not familiar with what was, and was not, done. Hell, he didn't know what this man HAD done, to save these people. His best, yes, and damned good that probably was. But...

The captain slowly nodded.

"That ... is a good suggestion, Your Grace. Yes." He gave a more definitive nod. "And we should do the same for each unit. Get a full accounting of our military strength, let them know the fate of their families. There will be fewer desertions if we can reassure them we know where everyone is."

"The sooner they get started, the more can be done tonight."

"Agreed."

A soldier came up, the one who had gone off in search of milk. He held an animal horn, from a cow or this world's version of such. It had a small scrap of leather or something tied around the small end. He handed it to James.

"It's only half full, but it should do." He looked at Ewa, nodding to the shocked girl. "Just find a guard and ask when you need more, Miss. No child should go hungry."

"Agreed," James said. He handed the girl the primitive bottle. "Here. See if he'll drink."

She took it, quickly adjusting the baby in her arms. She brought the small end of the horn to his mouth. Knowing what to do, the babe began sucking. It released the two fingers it had captured, hands going up to touch the source of its food. Ewa looked up at James, and the soldier.

"Thank you ... thank you..."

"You're welcome."

James stood, his body protesting a bit. He was not in the best of shape, although thin. He walked back over to the Captain.

"Sorry about that."

"Don't be, Your Grace. I think it told us both quite a bit about each other."

"Yes. Yes it did."

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