Mischief Mage: Yay...chapter 3. Enjoy it...the next one won't be out for a while...(and if it is you know that i'm skiving off my study). Also, i apologise for my alliteration titles, it's what happens when i can't think of anything better.


Having scrawled down the name of the mystery medicine and left the town house, trying to ignore the shrewd, piercing gaze of the land lady as she watched them from the door, Franz and Amelia, with their purchases, returned to their steeds. The fog had thickened, the silvery grey mist hanging in the air like a malignant gas. After freeing their horses from the rough ropes, Franz deposited the groceries in his saddle bags while Amelia laid the killer lances across her lap underneath the reins.

Squinting through the fog, Franz could make out a huge crowd of men by the gate, torches glowing hauntingly in the dim light. Making their way over, they found that half of the men were reinforcing the gate with planks of wood that looked like it had been torn directly from the bodies of the stalls. Meanwhile, the other half stood amongst the workers, holding shields over their own heads and the sweating bodies of their comrades. The reason for this became evident as there was a whistling in the damp air. No fewer than five javelins and ten arrows clattered down on the shields and were deflected onto the cobblestones.

A javelin skittered across the ground and came to rest at the feet of Franz's horse which turned this way and that, eyes wide in fear. Amelia's steed, which had had no such fright was also jittery, looking like it might bolt in any moment. But Amelia hadn't seemed to have noticed this. She called out to a figure beneath a shield who was nailing at a particularly mediocre lump of wood with a look of determination. He looked up at the sound of her voice and scurried over, weaving between the clamour of bodies.

'Who's that?' Franz asked Amelia as the boy approached, tufts of his hair plastered flat on his head in the wet.

'He works at the armoury.'

The young armourer stopped before the horses, panting.

'You're that lady from about an hour ago. Right?' he asked after catching his breath.

Amelia nodded.

'This is a friend of mine,' she told him, gesturing briefly to Franz, 'What's going on?'

Franz saw his eyes widen slightly in disbelief.

'You mean you don't know? Oh wait…you're not from around here. Well…those monsters are trying to break into the village again. This is the fourth time that we've had to reinforce the wall now because people need to get in and out during the day.'

'But that doesn't make sense' Franz said, confused. The boy turned to him for the first time. Franz could see the kind of instant respect that comes with wearing armour and carrying a formidable lance around all the time.

He continued: 'A village this side can't afford to have only one entrance. Why don't they come in any of the back routes?'

The figure before him shook his head and told him that most of their enemies consisted of a few bone-walkers, entombed and revenants. He went on to say that just because they had magically reanimated flesh didn't make them clever; besides, there were door keepers at the one other entrance that could raise the alarm.

Amelia seemed to be battling with an idea.

'Do you…'she began hesitantly, glancing across to Franz nervously, 'do you need our help?'

Franz knew that Amelia knew that helping the villagers would stop them from returning to camp that night. In camp, once night had fallen, patrols of entombed had been seen and heard shuffling around in the autumn leaves, just beyond the firelight which they maintained throughout the night. Two paladins alone on that treacherous road at night were just asking to be torn limb from limb.

But it was their duty to assist those under siege by the servants of darkness which, in this case, were right at the village's doorstep. So Franz nodded to Amelia who looked relieved at his compliance.

However, the brown head shook itself.

'We can handle it. We've held them off three nights in a row so far and we'll do it again.' His eyes were shining with a kind of pride for his stalwart Brundi.

'Then who's that down there?' asked Franz in an accusing voice which he hadn't intended. He was pointing at a pair of feet of a someone who was obviously lying down amongst the feet of those who were vertical.

The boy whirled around, saw where Franz had been pointing and whirled back.

'That's the gate keeper' he said looking away to the side, 'they got him with a knife through the peep hole when he opened it to see who was there.'

Franz remembered that pair of ebony eyes looking them up and down from that little window in the wood and the thought of a dagger being thrust into them made him wince.

'But the point is, thanks, but we can handle it. But' the fatherless young man added, eyeing their cargo, if you're staying out in the forest, you'll probably want to rent a room.'

Franz looked towards the sun, but, as it was so low in the sky, he couldn't even see it over the trees outside of the gate.

'We need to get back to camp Amelia, they need food, torches and more weapons unless if we want a weakened squad. If they're hit by a group the same size as this morning they'll need this stuff and our help. So-'

He turned to the boy who was suddenly looking afraid about something.

'Could you tell us the way out the back?'

The boy bit his lip.

'I …could…'cept…it's dangerous on that back road. Not as dangerous as the main road but…it will be if you don't get past it by nightfall.'

'Why's that?' Amelia was looking down at him with a mixture of concern and shrewdness.

But he only shook his head, dumb.

'Just ride swiftly, but carefully, light a torch and don't lose sight of each other.'

Franz and Amelia looked at each other in confusion, but nodded, he seemed keen to avoid the subject and to return to his fellow villagers.

The boy's body quaked a bit and he gulped, but he pointed out to them the way to the other side of village where there was a small gate and two gate keepers that would let them through. And with that, he spun on his heel and threw himself back into the mass of working bodies.

Almost as a mirror image to their acquaintance, the two turned their nervous steeds about and galloped through the fog and towards the village back-door.

The two baggy eyed gate-keepers gave no acknowledgement of Amelia and Franz going through the gate which was only a smaller clone of the main entrance, save a sort of half salute which reminded Franz of the ones that he had been forced to give when the casket of a Renais hero killed in action was passing.

Save the dense fog which could make the sun seem like an eerie, haunting flare, there didn't seem to be anything particularly amiss about the road except it was narrower than the main one. Franz, with a lighter load which had been made lighter still by him pulling out a torch and lighting it, rode in front, urging his horse faster as much as he dared in the poor visibility. With one hand gripping the reins and the other holding up the torch, he was able to see perhaps another metre in front of him, but really only ensured that, if there were any monsters out there, disguised by the shroud, they would find them very quickly.

After a short time of galloping along the road, making good time, a faint smell managed to find its way over the dampness and cause Franz to almost throw up. It was an insane mixture of the worst smells that Franz had ever encountered, faeces, dead bodies left in the sun, vomit, ancient urine and old, old sweat on a human body.

As Franz dry retched over his horse's mane, something ahead managed to spook the stallion and forced it to careen off the road, terrified. Shock over came the smell briefly, giving Franz a break from his heaving stomach to calm down his horse which was tossing its head, eyes rolling like wounded soldiers on a battle field who wanted only the mercy of a blade across their necks. But just as Franz had calmed his steed down sufficiently for it to begin returning to the road, he heard a sound which made his stomach plunge over a cliff face. A shocked scream reached his ears. Not so much a scream of terror, but more of a cry of shock at being caught off guard. Amelia.

He seized the reins and hauled his stallion around, speeding through the fog back to the road. Over the hooves clumping as they met the grass and then the mud road, Franz listened intently.

There was no sound. If the cry had been followed by a scream, it would mean that Amelia had met an enemy.

Silence meant that she couldn't scream.

Franz urged his horse even faster, ignoring the fact that he could only just see the ears on the brown head in front of him.

Once he felt the hard mud road under hoof, Franz slid off his horse and, holding the torch high over his head, he led it down the road calling Amelia's name.

After what seemed like an age, Franz spied a silhouette of a body on the ground.

'Amelia!'

Releasing the reins, he sprinted to her side and knelt down. But in the torch light he saw that the body, which was lying on its front, before him wasn't even wearing armour. He shook the body slightly before rolling the body over so that he could see the front. What he saw made him fall back, tasting bile rising at the back of his throat and beginning to dry retch again. It was undoubtedly a dead body. The maggots that crawled in and out of the holes in the dead woman's cheeks in the same way that fear could flow through every vein in a man's petrified body was testimony to that. Franz almost truly threw up as he saw a slight bulge moving along underneath the one un-rotted eyelid.

Before his stomach could catch up with what his eyes were seeing and the stench which had penetrated his nose, Franz leapt up and, as a slightly less dense patch of fog wafted by, he could see bodies strewn out over the road like the result of a massacre except minus the blood.

Franz became even more desperate in his search for Amelia. He peered into the face of every corpse, every rotting shell, only subconsciously noting that none of the bodies showed any sign of a wound.

Finally he came across four hooves which linked to four legs and finally, the body of a horse. And sticking out from beneath the unmoving body of the horse was-

'Amelia!' he cried for the umpteenth time that night.

The figure turned slightly at the sound of the name and, in the torch light, two large green eyes looked up at Franz in severe pain.

'My legs are shattered I think' she informed him as he looked her up and down.

Of course.

Franz veering off the road took their main source of light away, the sun now only a candle in a vast dungeon of mist. Franz's horse must have seen a body on the road ahead and gotten frightened. Without the light, Amelia's mare wouldn't have seen anything. It must have rolled, killing the horse but, amazingly, not the rider.

It had been Franz's fault, all his fault. If he had gotten a hold of himself instead of letting the smell get to him, he would have seen the corpse and could have warned her.

'I'm so sorry.' He whispered, tears beginning to well up in his eyes which he directed towards the brown coat of the now dead horse.

'It's alright Franz' she said, touching his hand, wincing in the effort. 'Besides,' she went on, 'I had a soft landing.' She gestured to a mattress of stinking bodies which she and her horse had added to. She giggled dryly. Franz was stunned, but he supposed that having every bone in your legs crushed would numb any sense of terror.

Franz knelt in apologetic silence for a few moments longer until Amelia pointed out that perhaps they should get back to camp before night fall which would bring innumerable enemies.

By using a maggoty but large log of wood, Franz was able to use one of the killer lances that Amelia had bought to lever the body of the horse off the pile of flesh just enough for Amelia to drag herself out by her hands, grimacing with every inch.

Franz found his horse. He strapped the half of the killer lances to one side of the saddle and the other half to the other, holding the last one in his hand. He slowly pulled Amelia up so that she could sit in front of him, legs hanging limply either side. He handed her the torch so that he could steer.

He flicked the reins and they set off at a gallop. Speed was vital even though Amelia almost passed out from the pain each time the hooves hit the ground. With each small, uncomplaining gasp she gave while she sat in front of him, kept from slipping over the side by his strong arms, Franz knew that he would never, ever let anything like that happen to her again.