The first thing Julian changed was the way the earth screamed.
For generations, the men of Aethelgard had used the "scratch plow"—a glorified stick that merely tickled the surface of the soil. It was a tool for a dying world. In the damp, heavy clay of the valley, it did little more than create shallow ruts that the rain turned into stagnant soup.
Julian stood in the center of the communal field, his boots sinking into the muck. Around him, the six plowmen watched with folded arms, their faces masks of weary skepticism.
"The earth is heavy because it is packed tight," Julian explained, pointing at the soil. "You are planting your seeds in a tomb. We need to turn the earth over. We need to let it breathe."
He stepped back to reveal his creation. It was a monstrosry of oak and iron. It looked nothing like the elegant tools of the future, but it possessed a brutal, functional logic. He had spent three days in the forge with the blacksmith, screaming over the roar of the bellows until the man understood the curve of the **moldboard**.
"It will kill the oxen," Osric spat, eyeing the massive wooden frame. "Too heavy. The beasts are already ribs and hide."
"The beasts are weak because they are hungry," Julian countered. "And they are hungry because your harvest is thin. We do this once, and the yield will triple."
He didn't wait for permission. He harnessed the two strongest oxen, their breath blooming in the gray air like ghosts. Julian took the handles. He felt the weight of the wood, the resistance of the ancient, packed clay. For a moment, his modern muscles—once soft from years of sitting in a gaming chair—protested. But then the immortality flared, a silent hum in his marrow that pushed back the fatigue.
He shoved the **coulter**—the iron knife he'd sharpened until it could shave hair—into the sod.
With a guttural shout, he urged the oxen forward. The iron bit. There was a sound like tearing silk as the plow sliced through the roots of the weeds. Then came the miracle: the curved moldboard caught the slab of earth and flipped it, exposing the dark, rich, worm-filled soil beneath.
The villagers gasped. They had never seen the "under-earth." To them, it looked like black gold.
By sunset, Julian had turned more earth than the six plowmen could have managed in a week. He sat by the Roman pillar, his hands stained with the grease of the oxen and the grit of the valley.
Elara approached him, carrying a wooden bowl of watered-down ale. She set it beside him but didn't leave.
"You didn't pray once today," she said softly. "The men say you work like a demon. That you don't even sweat when the sun—what's left of it—is at its highest."
Julian took a long pull of the sour ale. It was terrible, but it was cold. "Prayer is for things you can't control, Elara. I can control the depth of a furrow."
"Can you control the sickness?" she asked, her voice trembling. "Two children in the lower huts... their necks are swollen. The dark spots are starting."
Julian went still. The **Plague of Justinian**. It was here. He had been so focused on the food supply that he'd forgotten the silent killer that had been stalking the trade routes from Constantinople.
He stood up, the exhaustion he should have felt nowhere to be found. "Show me," he said. "And tell the blacksmith to stop making nails. I need him to build a copper coil. We're going to need high-proof spirits, and we're going to need them tonight."
"Spirits?" Elara frowned. "For a funeral?"
"No," Julian said, his eyes flashing with a cold, 21st-century light. "For a war."
That night, the village of Aethelgard didn't smell of woodsmoke alone. It smelled of boiling vinegar and the sharp, medicinal sting of distilled alcohol.
Julian stood outside the infected hut, a piece of boiled linen tied across his face. He looked at the terrified villagers huddled in the shadows. He wasn't a traveler anymore. He wasn't just the man with the plow.
He was the only man in the world who knew that the enemy was invisible, and he was the only man who had the time to kill it.
"From this day forward," Julian announced, "no one drinks from the river. Every drop of water touches the fire until it screams. If I see a flea on your coat, you burn the coat. Do you understand?"
They nodded, not because they understood bacteria, but because Julian stood there in the dark, his shadow cast long by the fire, looking like a god who had forgotten how to blink. The Empire was no longer a dream; it was a necessity for survival.