Four

Zen’dik awoke with a sword at his neck.  “If you make an attempt to kill anyone else,” said a voice, “I will not hesitate to run you through.”  The voice was familiar.  It was Lia’s voice.  Fear seized Zen’dik as he feared that his friend had betrayed him.
“You’re making a mistake,” he said.  “I didn’t mean to kill those people.  If the idiot soldier hadn’t come out and tried to arrest me, this never would have happened.”  Zen’dik shook his head.  “Lia, have some sense.  I’m not going to kill you.”
Lia held up her had, the sleeve of her robe folding down as she did so.  Her other hand still gripped the sword tightly, ready to use it if her companion made any sudden moves.  Zen’dik was her friend, damn it, but he was also a tiefling, and tainted by uncontrollable rage.  That much meant that until the curse had been lifted, he was a threat to everyone around him.  
“Of course you’re not.  I have you at sword point, so of course you won’t kill me.  Now, tell me what’s going on here!”  Lia’s face filled with rage.  “Why did you kill these people?”
Zen’dik looked up at Lia.  “I already told you, it was an accident.  After that soldier tried to kill me, I couldn’t stop killing.  You know how it works.”
Lia nodded.  “Yes, I know.  But it has to stop, and it has to stop now.”
“The only way that’s going to happen is if we can find my sister.  So let’s go.  Now.”
“We could, but where’s Brandis?”
“Well...” Zen’dik seemed to be pondering something.  “Well, he’s waiting outside the village.”
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Brandis stood by the three horses, slapping his foot against the ground and looking around.  Where were his companions, anyway?  He’d been waiting for four hours.  He tapped his foot harder against the ground, but then he heard a voice.  “I see you’ve been waiting for us.  Well, hi.”
Brandis swiveled around, drawing his sword out and preparing to fight off the militia soldiers or zombies or draconians or whatever it was that was behind him.
A demonic figure stood before him, and he swung his sword.  Zen’dik smiled, not a sardonic smile, but a friendly smile, and batted the sword aside.  “Relax, my friend.”  Brandis sighed and lowered his sword.  
“I thought...”
“It’s okay,” Zen’dik replied before Brandis could finish his thought.  “I must admit, it’s easy to mistake me for something I’m not, even if you’ve known me for a long time.”  The mercenary nodded his agreement.  
“Let’s go, before someone else comes along and tries to kill us.”  It was Lia that had spoken.  She’d been leaning on her staff the whole time.  Thoughts ran through her head of how foolish the two was, and her sweat-covered palm struggled to keep its odd grasp on the top of the spiral staff.  “You see, when we were in the village the soldiers tried to kill Zen’dik.  And then...”
Zen’dik flashed Lia an angry look, and she lowered the gaze of her eyes to the ground slightly.  “Never mind,” she muttered, and clambered up on top of her horse.
Brandis and Zen’dik followed suit, though the tiefling quickly flicked his dagger out of its scabbard as he looked off into the village.  “We should leave quickly, they’ll be coming soon to investigate the death of their captain.”
“Agreed,” Lia murmured and held out her arm with the staff, her left arm.  The staff was held so that it went along her arm.  “Now, if they come they’ll regret that they had.”  A sphere of flame coalesced on the end of the large staff as she signaled for her horse to run.  Zen’dik and Brandis followed Lia.
Brandis, of course, had no weapons other than his sizable sword and his deadly spiked gauntlets.  But neither of those would help against the militia from a distance, so he asked Zen’dik politely if he could borrow a crossbow.  Though the mercenary was not a master of that weapon, he had had some training with it, and so he could certainly hit his target from thirty yards off.
And so they rode off, dagger, crossbow and staff in hand.  The three of them were looking for any sign that the militia would be following them, anything.  Anything at all.  As they rode,  a strange stillness grasped the air.  Everything seemed to slow down.  Then the trio were out of the range of the village, and Zen’dik sighed out of relief.
That relief ended abruptly when his horse cried out in distress.  The tiefling looked down and saw that the beast was suddenly bleeding terribly.  A crossbow bolt had found its way into the horse’s flank.  Brandis and Lia’s horses reared up in terror, then began to dash off randomly.  Zen’dik tried to control his mount, but he couldn’t as it simply spun around several times before crying out in agony and dropping to the ground.
Thunk.
Zen’dik leaped off of the horse and looked around.  The militia men were coming quickly, crossbows pointed straight at him.  The tiefling heard a voice in the distance.  “Slow down, you!” it shouted.  But Zen’dik wasn’t going to slow down.  He ran and ran and ran, faster than he had ever run before.
Luckily, Brandis and Lia had gotten control of their horses, and Zen’dik could run quickly enough to stay close behind.  But he wouldn’t be able to maintain that speed for long.  “Lia,” he said, “Do something!  Quickly!”  Zen’dik drew his knife from its sheath and thrust it through the air at one of the crossbowmen.
The blade flew straight towards him.  He tried to knock it aside with his own dagger, but he wasn’t fast enough.  The knife found a home in his forehead, and he collapsed to the ground.  Another of the crossbowmen picked up the knife and threw it back at Zen’dik, shouting a curse.  The knife was inches from Zen’dik’s head, and would have hit, but the weapon’s magic sent it through the ethereal and into Zen’dik’s sheath just in time.
Lia stretched her staff out over Zen’dik and towards the militia.  She began to chant quietly under her breath.  “Thank you,” whispered Zen’dik, moving out of the way and drawing his dagger out again.  Brandis leaped out of his saddle and drew his sword, charging into the fray with a screaming blood frenzy.
Lia didn’t even notice as she finished her chant.
The flame came forth from her staff, and as Brandis was busy killing the militia men, he didn’t notice his own impending doom.
The flame hit.  Zen’dik watched with horror as Brandis and everybody else in the area was engulfed.  Fire billowed up from the ground, forming a mushroom cloud of sorts.  As the flame dissipated, Zen’dik looked closely at that spot in the distance.
Twelve charred corpses.  That was all that was left.