In Harmony We Trust, Ryan Matthew Harker [rooftoppers .txt] 📗

King’s outburst but stood his ground. “Sire, we’re doing everything we can.”
“Apparently it’s not enough,” Zakeriah muttered. A distinct look of fear was creeping into his eyes. Fear for his people, fear for his kingdom, and fear that Harmony’s foul play would not allow him to face the sorcerer on fair terms; then the prospect of dying helplessly in the palace without the chance to properly defend his kingdom chased away his fear and replaced it with a righteous anger that lit a wildfire behind his eyes.
“Damnit, where are my defense advisors?” he yelled.
“With all due respect, your Highness, they are busy trying to maintain the integrity of our shields,” Nefarious told him gently.
The King raised his eyes to the ceiling and spread his arms in supplication. “Death take Harmony and the evil that was birthed with him,” he moaned.
“All in due time, my lord, all in due time,” Nefarious said. It pained him to see the King act so. Normally Zakeriah was a stout, self-assured man who was not susceptible to the depression that seemed to plague him of late. The King’s chief advisor knew that his liege’s worries stemmed from his present inability to act against his enemies and hoped to soon see an end to this helplessness before it had a chance to turn into despair.
Another blast hit the shields. The walls shook and the floor trembled violently. The King’s crown slipped down on his head and he reached up absently to right it.
“They’re coming closer together,” he said.
“Yes my lord,” Nefarious agreed.
“Damn you are about useless!” Zakeriah exploded. “Get the hell out of here! I don’t want to see you until you have some good news to report. Now, GET OUT!” The King stood up, arm raised and finger pointed towards the door.
“Yes, my lord,” Nefarious said respectfully, bowing as he made his way for the door. He knew the King was stressed and prayed that something would happen soon to upset the balance of the siege.


Lord Quazetkic stood on a rock outcropping high in the foothills far to the west of the capital and watched as a flash of light signaled another hit against the city of his besieged king. As the Lord of Longiglow, the largest province of the five that were rallied against the Dark Sorcerer, he had taken it upon himself to organize the lords of the other provinces and try to formulate a plan that would free the King to rise against Harmony and his minions. As of that moment any plan that was worth attempting was slow to form.
The three men who stood with him, the Lords Keriee, Havershom, and Turinoc, shielded their eyes from the glare of another blast with their hands.
“They’re coming quicker,” Turinoc observed. Lord of the Southern Realms Turinoc was a giant of a man who stood nearly seven feet tall and weighed in at two hundred and eighty-five pounds. He was dressed in full battle armor and was rumored never to be without it, not even in sleep. A giant battle axe hung on his back, an heirloom from the last Great War where it had been carried by his great-great grandfather. It had seen many battles and its blades were notched from heavy blows against their steel.
“Aye,” Havershom lowered his hand and dug a custom made cigarette case from within his vest, removed a cigarette and lit it. “I do’na think their shields’r’ gonna last much longer.”
Quazetkic look at the wiry lord and wondered how Havershom retained his fit physique while entertaining such a disgusting habit.
Lord Keriee broke his customary silence and smoothed down the corners of his mustache with thumb and forefinger. “I believe it’s time,” he said softly.
“Time, boyo?” Havershom queried.
“Time,” Keriee repeated.
“The Lord Keriee is right,” Quazetkic stated firmly. “We have bided our time hiding in these hills for long enough.”
“I agree,” Turinoc rumbled.
“So wat’r’ ye propos’n’?” Havershom asked Quazetkic and took a long pull from his cigarette.
“I’m proposing,” Quazetkic enunciated the word slowly. “That we give our king the reprieve that he needs and take out that canon.”
Lord Keriee stroked the corners of his mustache and nodded.
Havershom ignored the jibe at his speech, if anything thickening his accent as he ground his cigarette out under his heel and said, “Alreet! Tha's wat'm talk’n aboot, m’boyo. An’ how’r’ ye propos’n,” he enunciated the word slowly. “We do that?”
Lord Quazetkic turned and began to walk away. “Tell your men it is time to move out. I will explain as we ride.”


The cold was unbearable and the falling snow was almost thick enough to drown in. The horses were foundering and could hardly push through the snow piling up to their chests. Some had already been lost to the cold having stopped and refusing to go any further until they had froze where they stood. After two days of travel into the mountains it was a surprise that none of the mercenaries had been lost along with them.
Jeshux was constantly blinded by and had to squint into, the sleeting snow crystals as they flew in sideways. He had long ago lost all feeling in his fingers and his feet. His beard and eyebrows, indeed his whole face was encrusted with ice but somehow he found the strength to stay on his horse while his steed somehow found the strength to continue through the blizzard.
Without warning, as he was about to slip off of his horse, someone crashed into him. Startled out of his lethargy he turned to see a face as encrusted with ice as he knew his own to be staring at him.
“Jeshux!” the face shouted and the voice was Candlelite’s. “We’ve got to stop! We’re not gonna make it much longer! We need fire!”
The Commander General’s senses were so addled by the cold that he could barely comprehend what the young man was telling him.
Seeing the dazed look in his eyes Candlelite grabbed Jeshux and shook him. “Do you understand? We need to get warm!”
Jeshux nodded dumbly and pulled his horse to a halt.
Relief washed over Candlelite and he smiled as much as his frozen face would let him before going to tell the others.
Candlelite returned with McAriicoys and Vohrmint and the four men began to burrow in a snow drift seven feet deep, hollowing out a cave to shelter them against the howling wind that drove the temperature down to almost negative seventy degrees.
Max and Absinthe held the horses to one side with Sefu and it was only when they were done digging the cave that Jeshux realized that they were alone.
Uncertain how you could lose an entire army, even in the extremes of weather that they were facing, he shouted above the wind, “Where is everyone?”
Vohrmint shrugged his massive shoulders and made his way into the cave to engage in building a fire from supplies in his pact while McAriicoys shouted back, “I don’t know! They were all behind us the last I noticed.”
Candlelite ducked his head under the low entrance, led Absinthe into the enclosed spaces of the glorified snow tunnel and knelt down beside Vohrmint to help with the fire.
Max came in with Sefu and immediately broke out his whiskey, taking a healthy swallow before he passed it around to the others. The already cobwebbed Jeshux declined the bottle as he entered the cave but the usually abstaining McAriicoys took the proffered alcohol gratefully.
“Did any of you notice what happened to my men?” Jeshux demanded.
Everyone shook their heads negatively.
“I haven’t been able to pay attention to anything,” Absinthe said from where she huddled close to the small fire as it crackled to life. “But I think it’s been a couple of hours since I last noticed somebody behind me.”
“Yeah,” Candlelite said and nodded that this was true for him also.
Vohrmint built the fire up higher. In the cave and out of the wind the temperature was still below zero. The melting snow was running from the fire but as soon as it got far enough away it froze again.
“So what are we going to do now?” Sefu asked and then guzzled off the whiskey.
“Hey! Take it easy there,” Max chided her taking his bottle back. “I haven’t got much more of that.”
Candlelite narrowed his gaze. “What are we going to do?” he asked Jeshux.
“I don’t know,” Jeshux said. “I have a feeling that we won’t survive long in here and we won’t survive at all if we go back out there.” He hooked a thumb at the mouth of their cave.
“Really, no shit,” Candlelite said facetiously. “Did you figure that out all by yourself?”
“Enough!” Absinthe commanded rummaging in her pack. “I know what we need to do.”
“And what is that my dear?” Max asked gently.
She came up from her open pack holding some packages. “We eat,” she said.
“Now that’s the best idea I’ve heard in a long time,” Vohrmint said taking one of the field rations she offered. “I feel like I could eat a horse.”
“I hope you like them frozen,” McAriicoys told him. He had just gotten back from checking on the animals.
“Why’s that?” Vohrmint asked and munched a bite out of a food bar.
“Let’s just say I don’t think we’ll be riding out of here,” he said as he crouched next to the fire and accepted his own meal from Absinthe.
“The horses?” Jeshux looked over the fire at his friends eyes.
“The horses,” McAriicoys confirmed chewing slowly.
“Damnit,” the mercenary leader muttered as he shook his head.
“What?” Candlelite asked as he looked from one man to the other. “What about the horses?”
“They’re dead Candlelite,” Vohrmint said softly.
“What?”
“Horsesicles,” Max interjected.
“What?” Candlelite asked for a third time.
“Candlelite, stop saying what,” Absinthe shoved him.
The young man chomped down on his food bar and did not say anything but his jaws clenched and unclenched around his food furiously.
“You know this is just great,” he finally muttered.
“Candlelite!” Absinthe admonished.
“Look, I’m sorry but this is starting to become too much,” he said. “I didn’t ask for this. I didn’t ask for any of this. Getting mauled by that damned werewolf and having my whole family killed was bad enough but now here I am on a world other than my own, in a different universe, in a completely different dimension of reality for Christ’s sake and I’m supposed to be the savior of everyone. Except that now I can’t even save myself and I’m going to die. I’m going to freeze to death in this god forsaken cold on this godforsaken mountain and come spring I’m going to thaw out and provide some little critter with a tasty treat!”
“Well at least some good will come of this,” Vohrmint said and cracked a smile.
Candlelite looked at the aged warrior like he was crazy and then looked around the circle of his comrades, his friends. He stopped when he got to Absinthe and saw the hurt, the anger on her face and the tears that had sprung from her eyes to roll down her cheeks.
The beautiful young woman’s face was flushed and her emerald eyes sparkled like jewels. Her lower lip trembled and when she opened her mouth her words were so quiet they were almost inaudible.
“What do you mean by this?” she asked him.
“Huh?”
“You said you didn’t ask for this,” Absinthe made an encompassing motion with one hand. “Any of it. Well I’m a part of this, also. So you didn’t ask for me either.”
“Abbie,” Candlelite implored. He could see where this was going.
But she held up a hand to silence him, the anger overcoming her hurt. “And if you don’t