Ruein: Fires of Haraden: Action/Adventure Necromancy Series (Books of Ruein Book 2), G.O. Turner [little bear else holmelund minarik txt] 📗

Cold enveloped the healer, Tender Peridoc.

He deserved better.

This…this was a mista…

1

Crouched upon the grated overlook, Ruein’s thoughts swirled with the fumes of the iron refinery. The noxious aroma didn’t seem so bad. The fumes couldn’t harm her anyways. She’d lost her ability to be poisoned at the same time she had lost her friends.

The autumn cold outside didn’t mean much to her, but then the heat of the refinery wasn’t so bad either. Ruein didn’t sweat.

The only light was the dull glow from the pooling iron. Just as well. She didn’t need it any more than those around her. Ruein stared past gouts of steam, the heat waves escaping spent sluices. She’d already surveyed the facility. All that was left to do was choose her timing.

Endless moments now existed for her to dwell. The passage of time had taken on new meaning. Some periods were precious and uncertain—mainly when she oversaw Rue’s children—while others were too expansive, stretching the days and nights.

Ruein didn’t sleep anymore.

It’d been more than a week since their hollow Chapel Mount victory.

She had so much time. Too much. Time away…to not inflict herself upon those she cared for. Time left with only her thoughts…

…and without Manu.

That was never going to be easy. More than her husband, she had placed Manu as the center of her world. Father to their children and a hopeful beacon of what should be. He was her holy man, everything that she was not. Charitable against her spite. Light where she lay dark.

For whatever reason, Manu not only accepted her, he loves… He loved her.

He’s gone now. They were gone.

Shouldn’t I just…?

A few small flames licked along a distant sluice. The glimmer caught her eye, lighting thoughts of their children, Arim and Nayr. At least their small lights still remained.

Ruein’s hand slid to her leather breastplate. Her sundered heart had reconnected a few tenuous threads. She considered it sutured rather than mended, but her sister-in-law, Liv, would have her believe it divine intervention.

Rue had little care for gods. Seemed unlikely she’d be any different. If nothing else, at least she could hold the children again, even if it was devoid of joy. Her family had cried their tears, embraced one another. They’d found comfort in the arms of loved ones. All of which was wasted upon Ruein.

That emptiness added to her spans to fill.

What was the point? How could she long for a thing she could not feel? Such notions were superfluous now. Memories reflected a past stripped of what gave them weight. Her heart was severed from what had the most meaning: love, kindness, charity. They’d become just words. Only one feeling remained.

Bereft of all others, Ruein hungered for that feeling again.

A sneer rippled over her dried lips. She spiraled back to her sole heartstring with a solid strum: Hate. That she could feel. It was a loathsome urge, calling for more than a depraved response. Undead had thrust themselves into their lives. Basked in her agonies and left it all in ashes. Such abominations had no place in this world.

Empty nights lingered with the knowledge of what was here in Karris City.

Urges build into pressure. And pressure needs venting.

By week’s end, the children would be under her care. In the nonce, it was only two days to Karris and two days back.

The Doctorate were supplying undead to the local refiners. Disposable labor to work their hazardous conditions. Ruein would show them.

She surveyed the refinery chamber, looking over the number of ambling dead. On the far side, the half-rotted face of a hill giant went about tireless labors. Scorched hides covered its absent modesty. The behemoth poured molten slag into a sluice, which channeled over to the other baser zombies. The glowing slurry flowed through channels for which these dead husks performed their tasks. Rhythmic hammers sledged off the impurities, creating the cacophony of steel on iron.

Without a living soul anywhere, Ruein could do what she came to do. There would be no pity, remorse, or any call in revealing she was ever there.

She rose. Her tattered red cloak shrouded around her as she lifted her glaive. It was a satisfying weapon, a pointed meat cleaver affixed to a pole that would provide both reach and throttle through its haft.

Eager for her dirty work, she’d geared fittingly. The drow-crafted armor was burnished ornately in her skeletal motif. Wrought iron adorned each piece of her thick black leathers.

She’d waited long enough.

Molten drabs fell from the giant’s crucible. He took his emptied stone pot away to refill in the furnace room. Ruein sized up the first husk before her. The dead raised its hammer as she swung her glaive around toward its shoulder. Her swipe carved through with little resistance.

The zombie’s hammer fell. The mallet glanced off its head, knocking it sideways. As both Ruein and the zombie wheeled, she brought her glaive in.

Her blade inserted to its gut.

Ruein carved upward, opening wide its torso. Desiccated organs dumped upon the grates.

She extracted her weapon with a yank.

Alabaster eyes stared blankly into hers.

This. This is what I want.

She spun, and her keen edge swept through. The dead’s head popped, lurching into the air. As it came down, Ruein’s free hand shot out to snag the abomination.

Glancing past the rail over a bubbling vat below, Ruein released her grip. The head tumbled to a molten sploosh. What tissue and hair remained, blossomed into flames as it bobbed on the surface.

Though Ruein hadn’t a need, she inhaled the satisfaction of that moment.

Blackness welled from her core, cascading along her spine. Tendrils of wrath raced through her mind, then charged out her arms. She not only writhed in gleeful destruction—

Ruein smiled.

More. I want more.

Her cloak flew wide as she dropped the four yards to the lower deck. Rising from a crouch, her glaive whipped bodily around. She circled through the legs of two newly alerted dead.

They toppled, severed at the knees.

Still not enough.

Her wild, hungry eyes caught others