In Harmony We Trust by Ryan Matthew Harker (chromebook ebook reader .TXT) 📕

to the skulls and brains oozing forth could be found. Pools of blood were spread everywhere, congealing with hundreds of flies buzzing around them. Besides the zombies the little winged carrion eaters were the most abundant life either of them had seen since their arrival.
Other than the fetid remains of their cannibalistic feeding not a sign remained to betray the zombie’s unnatural presence in Gontiluna. Of all the corpses that littered the area not one of them hinted at a brown robe. It was as if the creatures possessed some half remembered respect for the ‘dead’ and had taken their fallen with them. All of the corpses and pieces of corpses were of only goblins, werewolves, humans, and vampires. Jeshux scanned the mayhem about him and his quick survey confirmed that all of Harmony’s troops, except for the vampires who had flown away, had all fallen and been consumed by the undead inhabitants of Gontiluna, or mostly consumed anyway.
As the sun rose so did the temperature, promising that the day was going to be unseasonably warm. Average temperatures for that part of the world had been topping off around sixty-seven degrees or so, it was a half an hour after sunrise and the temperature had already reached that.
Keeping a sharp lookout for any unwanted guests, dead or otherwise, Jeshux moved his troops back down the boulevard toward his horses and the Citadel gates. Once they were past the point that had drove the equines crazy he had McAriicoys send out a few small groups to see if they could find anymore of the spooked animals. It was going to be a long walk back to the capital if they could not find mounts for his men.
During their forced encampment in the guild hall McAriicoys had told Jeshux about Harmony’s attack on Dirsellia with the arcane energy bomb and the subsequent annihilation of the surrounding countryside. Although he knew of the weapons potential for destruction it was still almost inconceivable to think of an area of hundreds of miles just wiped clean, all of those people gone, along with towns, trees, shrubs, and even hills. If it was possible it made the Commander General even more determined to destroy Harmony and with the siege of the capital he was sure it was time for them to return there.
McAriicoys, along with everyone else, had been told about the contents of the Archmagi’s diary. He was appalled at the idea of the woman’s perversion and betrayal. For six hundred years Archmagi Florencii had been the ruling power in Gonderlund and also an inspiration for the learning of many. She ran the Mage Guild like a tight ship ensuring that all who sought its wisdom never left disappointed. Maybe not the most politically involved leader but still there had never been any doubt from anyone about her commitment to the paths of light and virtue. Therefore it came as a surprise to learn that she had been secretly practicing and perfecting her necromonious arts for hundreds of years and through these arts had linked with and become an unwilling supporter of Harmony.
Jeshux related via the diary that it was through her necromancy that the sorceress finally committed her worst atrocity to date, which was an act of open treason against the crown. Using her illegal and accursed power she cast a spell over the entire country. This spell created a field, of which the boundary that scared the horses was but a remnant of. This field had covered the entire country of Gonderlund and slowly subverted the men, women, and children until they had one day stopped in the middle of their activities, whatever it was that they were doing, because they had become the monstrosities that the mercenaries had witnessed the night before. The field was the reason that none of the magical authorities has suspected what was happening because its power, though extremely strong, was so subtle as to be nearly undetectable.
And the entire time Florencii had waited, biding her time until her maniacal magic came to fruition and the entire population was under her sole control. For this was not only the last test of her acquired abilities but also her means of fulfilling the terms of the bargain that had bought her those powers. The diary had told of Harmony and how he had baited the Archmagi with tidbits of lore over the years. Feeding the woman’s lust for knowledge until it had grown insatiable the dark sorcerer presented the last piece of lore that she required. He tantalized her with it, dangling it in front of her until she could not help but agree to any demands he made for its acquisition. When she broke this is what he requested, that she use this power to enslave her people, transform them into nearly mindless monsters and march them at his request to join his army and help him in his conquest of AnEerth. Blinded by greed and high on the prospect of the power that would be hers, Archmagi Florencii agreed. This was the ultimate horror that a book of horrors finished with. The Archmagi ensorcelled her people and then, leaving enough of them behind with thoughts of guarding her crimes, she set off with the rest to join Harmony at the capitals gates.
The more he heard of Harmony and the black deeds of which he was capable and for which he was credited, so too did Candlelite’s own hate for the vile warlock swell until it very nearly rivaled that of McAriicoys or even Jeshux, men both who’s hatred and loathing had been fed and growing for centuries.
Having reached the stables and saddled the horses Jeshux had everyone who had mounts on them while they waited for the return of the men McAriicoys had sent out. After an hour of waiting mercenaries began to trickle in leading horses and after two hours all of them had returned but only a little over half of the animals had been recovered. The mercenary leader cursed at and conferred with McAriicoys. He had been pleasantly surprised at the arrival of his soldiers but with transportation at a minimum it was obvious that he was going to have to leave half of his men behind.
Having decided that the men who could ride would leave immediately Jeshux ordered a messenger sent to summon the rest of his army from the outskirts of the city. The men who could not ride would wait for the arrival of their comrades, finding horses as they could and catching up later.
So divided Jeshux and the others left the Citadel and headed away from Gontiluna.
The unseasonably hot weather continued to get hotter as the day progressed and by noon the temperature had increased until it was over eighty degrees.
Sefu had worked out another deal with Jeshux before they had left the Citadel. It was made perfectly clear that no one trusted her but the assassin’s dignity refused to let her be trussed up again like some piece of livestock; so she officially renounced her contract to kill the Chosen Ones and let the Commander General keep the blood money that she had received as a token of good faith. She knew that if she made any move to violate this bargain through any attempt to visit violence upon either Candlelite or Absinthe she would never live to escape the mercenary party. She believed Jeshux when he told her this and honestly had no intention to resume her work for the Dark Sorcerer. No contract, no matter how well it paid, was worth her losing her life.
So now the assassin rode, if not as a respected member of the mercenary group, then at least as one tolerated. Candlelite hardly said a word to her without some amount of contempt in his voice and Absinthe refused to talk to her at all, glaring at her whenever she caught the assassin looking her way but still she rode at the head of the army with Jeshux, McAriicoys, and the rest.
The little scientist Max Kimbal was the only one of them who treated her civilly, like she was human, and despite her solitary nature Sefu actually found that she liked the coarse old man a little bit.
Candlelite and Absinthe were overjoyed at being reunited with their mentor Vohrmint. The hulking mercenary had taught them both a lot while they had been holed up at the Midnight Monastery. He told them of his adventure and they were relieved to hear that Jin and the other monks had been evacuated safely. The old merc was also happy to hear that his friends had endured their own journeys virtually unscathed. At Candlelite’s relation of Jeshux and his capture of Sefu Atarle, Vohrmint guffawed heartily and openly stared at the assassin, noting that she scowled and turned almost as scarlet as the sash at her waist when she overheard Candlelite tell him how he had knocked her out with Jeshux pistol.
“That woman’s trouble,” Vohrmint told the younger man with a twinkle in his eye.
“You can say that again,” Candlelite grumped.
“You don’t agree with Jeshux letting her tag along?” Vohrmint asked him.
“I don’t trust her.”
“As well you shouldn’t,” Vohrmint said. “That woman has her own agenda. She looks out for number one, which makes it both easy and hard to tell what she’ll do.”
“Yeah,” Candlelite looked over his horses head. “But whatever she does it’s bound to be bad for anyone else.”
Vohrmint laughed, “You know, you’re probably right. I guess in that respect she’ll also be predictable.”
The temperature soared and by the time the sun started to set everyone was looking forward to the night and its diminishing effect on the heat. Unfortunately the night brought no relief. The sun went down and by the time that Candlelite and Absinthe returned to camp from their transformation the heat had not even gone down one degree.
The next day was even worse as the sun dawned with a starting temperature of almost ninety degrees and climbed just as steadily as it had the day before. When night came it once more brought no relief to temperatures that were well over one hundred.
Halfway through the third day out from Gontiluna one of the mercenaries spotted the vampire and Jeshux suspicions were confirmed.
There had been murmurs over the small cook fires throughout the camp for the last two nights that the sudden heat wave could not be natural and dusk of the third day they were murmurs no longer but outright discussions. The mercenaries sweated as they watched their food, barely able to stand the added heat of their fires long enough to let it cook, and everyone wondered how much hotter it would get the next day.
“What are we going to do?” Max asked as he wiped sweat off of his glasses. It was so hot that the old man would not even drink. He said it would do him no good as he was sweating so much the booze came out of his pores as fast as he could pour it down his throat.
“There’s not much we can do.” McAriicoys stood against a tree with his arms crossed. Earlier in the evening they had rode into a forest but even the shade of the trees was no help against the heat.
“He’s right,” Jeshux said. He had been brooding all day, ever since the enemy ‘spy’ had been spotted, thinking things over from every angle as he tried to come up with a solution. The facts were though that there was no solution, it was just over one hundred and forty degrees and if the temperature went any higher he and his people would only last a day, maybe two, tops.
“There’s nothing we can do,” he continued. “But keep heading in the direction we’re going, hope that it doesn’t