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

and the others were standing in wait. The bucket wasn’t that large. She’d need to be where she was going before her gambit triggered.

Splashing along deserted streets, the only beat was that of her boots. Her heart was forever stilled. Yet, the lack of that organ was not without some hardiness. Being dead made exertion a memory.

This could show her worth.

Once within proximity, Ruein began searching the side roads and back alleys. Ceer’s hushed, “Psst!” revealed their position. They’d found a ruddy blanket to huddle the Lightbringer under. No doubt, the waft of wet animal from it wouldn’t be easy for Liv to stomach.

“Are you ready?” Ruein asked.

Liv spun her pommel in her hand.

Ceer crouched on his bark-covered legs.

Twigs stepped from the alley. “What say, I get a head start? You know these little legs may be sexy, but not so good at getting ahead.”

Ruein looked to Ceer’s arched brows. They knew their capabilities. She nodded.

At the first sound of commotion from the gate, Twigs began his run.

Liv, shield to her side and mace swinging in stride, took up behind him. Ruein followed.

They rounded the bend and the gate came into view.

Ruein glanced back. Ceer remained in the alley, coiled like a spring. The tension in his legs mounted as he leaned into it. What the hells was he waiting for? The half-orc was not her concern, though.

The threat was ahead…and responding as she’d hoped.

Haraden’s phalanx pivoted. They focused their outermost forces upon the looming threat on the other side. Ruein’s skeleton waylaid them. The behemoth clawed the men, dragging away members. It pulled them back into its dome of dark. Whittling away their numbers and shit-scaring them from within its bucket of darkness. The troll skeleton beat them to submission, then returned for more. Well worth the repugnant act of summoning.

A deep-seated fear of necromancy more than sufficed to draw their attention. So engaged were the Elite that, with their pivot, the rear line spread out.

Ruein and Liv charged. The forward ruckus, screams, and roars masked the Lightbringer’s smashing arrival into the rear’s halberd-wielders.

From five yards out, Twigs waved a blurt of druidic. Shifting vapors shot from his tiny fingers, exploding between the back phalanx and the gate arch. If not for Ruein being already upon the gnome, she would have surely lost sight of him.

Twigs clutched at the hem of her cloak, maneuvering around and away.

The gate faded from view, consumed in a field of mist. This was not the gray of Ruein darkvision, for she could barely discern anything beyond her own arm span. However, this also meant neither could the dark-orcs, and she had already seen all she needed to.

Her glaive made a diagonal sweep through the calves of two Elites. They came into focus only as she closed the distance. Strikes to feet and legs were not the noblest of acts. Ruein didn’t care. She’d priorities and no call for illusions.

Surging over the fallen, Ruein’s shoulder shoved betwixt the next four. She rounded herself within their midsts.

Her exposed, dead eyes flared malevolence at them.

They’d already a fear of the necromancer. Now, her aura and horrific appearance pushed them over the edge. A wild frenzy erupted from their eyes. They fell upon themselves as the insanity before them took hold.

The two outermost fled while the remaining inner pair clawed their way over their own ranks.

Sizing up her next opponent, there came a building roar of a half-orc from behind. With the appearance of a tumbling log thrown lengthways, the mists parted an instant before Ruein ducked.

Ceer hurled himself, a body-wide wooden cudgel against his unexpecting dark-orc brethren. He spun through, springing outward as he vanished deeper into their ranks. The distinctive sounds of fists and knees met with gasps and the crack of joints.

Ruein headed for their exit. Glaive swipes and her aura preceding, she emerged from the mists to an already shut portcullis.

Twigs appeared from under her cloak. He jabbed a thumb to the mists. “You get them. I’ve got this.”

All things considered, this was going well. Yet, they still didn’t have an actual plan. What’s next? Where do we go after?

The gnome hoisted himself up on the gate room handle and was yanking upon the latch. Ruein squinted at him. Oh, please. That’s not helping.

Her hand flared crimson. Slapping her charnel touch upon the wood surrounding the latch, her necrotic power did its worst. It withered, splitting under the strain.

Both the knob and Twigs came away, tumbling to the dirt.

Ruein spun and landed her boot on the crack of the doorframe. It swung inward to the shock of the stationed duergar.

Her alabaster gaze fell upon him.

Abandoning his post, he shriveled into the corner. Ruein strode in. She gauged through the barred window. No additional forces waited beyond; only the open road, farmlands, and berms ahead.

The portcullis’ geared lever was simple enough. She propped her gauntlet upon the handle and thrust up. Chains and sprockets clinked into motion.

Grabbing the duergar by his scruff, she dragged him out and tossed him before the obscuring mists. The underdark dwarf shot for the sounds of combat within. Far better to chance what he couldn’t see than what he could.

The arch’s shelter acted as a catch for Twigs mists, however the storm winds were dissipating them quickly. Already, the phalanx’s outline was reasserting before them.

The howl of her undead troll now absent.

Dislodging from the scrum, Ceer and Liv edged their way back. The half-orc maneuvers were as much a defense as her sister’s half-plate. Liv’s brawling smacks met with falchions raining upon her shield.

Ruein brought her glaive around as cover for their exit. She feigned and parried against swords and polearms.

Up close with her sister, Liv glared back. “Ruein!” Her undead appearance reflected from the shield. A not-too-subtle reminder.

Fine. She reasserted her illusion of health.

The gnome whined, “Motherless underdarkers, would you just freakin’ open already?”

Ruein chanced a glance Twigs’ way. He stared incredulously at the still-rising portcullis. The wrought iron wall had not emerged from the ground, though it