We had moved him from our first safehouse to a near-identical safehouse some ten miles away. No harm in saying that now - both of them have been found out, and I don't have any more in the area.
But she wasn't alone this time, no. This time, the girl-brat (as opposed to the boy-brat) brought this killjoy to the party.
I had left Kobold...downstairs again and clambered up into the branches of a nearby tree to keep watch. I knew they were coming - they had "visited" yesterday, making sure that this was the place, which it unfortunately was. But they had come in a truck, and I was expecting a truck tonight. I figured I would be able to hear the rumble of the rusty engine about a mile off, but I was not prepared for a giant dog bounding through the trees, with the girl sprinting along afterwards. The dog had a keg of brandy around its neck, for Pete's sake! But the dog crashed past me and ran off into the woods again, while its passenger leaped off and tumbled to the ground. He got up, dusted himself off, and looked straight at my hiding place in the trees.
And then I laughed.
He calls himself a knight. Sure, a knight, maybe, in ragged, camouflage cargo pants, heavy hiking boots, and a simply filthy white t-shirt. Now, granted, he did have a Kevlar vest on, so maybe he wasn't totally stupid, but he was also wearing a metal cooking pot for a helmet - a colander, maybe? I didn't get such a good look while I was falling out of the tree. The bastard shot me, and he didn't even have the courtesy to use a gun. He hit me in the leg, and I lost my grip on the branches, and that fall hurt big-time, lemme tell you. My air intake was reduced to about one one hundredth of what it was normally and my eyes started swimming, but when I finally raised my head I could see, plain as day, that this Thighpiece character was holding an honest-to-God crossbow in his outstretched hand, and it was pointed at my head.
Then the dog trundled up next to him, which I was mostly ready for, and said, "Che la morte non sia crudele. Requiescat in pace," which I was not. And that sheer audacity - giving me a death prayer?! - made me really pissed. Now, pissed or not, I wouldn't have been in a position to deal with it, if Kobold hadn't rumbled out of the safehouse just then, holding the girl around the neck in one huge hand. That gave us leverage, and them pause.
"You let us live," I said through gritted teeth, "and we give you the kid." Thighpiece looked at the girl, and I craned my neck around to look too. Kobold was watching the scene, dull as ever, and then the girl nodded and gasped out an "Okay!" Thighpiece nodded, resigned to help her above killing lucky old me, and stuffed his crossbow into a simple rucksack he had, slung across his back. I noticed his spear-hammer-lance thing hanging off of a strap, but as he didn't seem to want to use it right now I didn't worry. Kobold dropped the girl, seeming to understand, and went back inside, coming out a few moments later with the boy bundled up and staggering beside him, gagged and glaring. The girl gave out a cry and ran to him, while Thighpiece started walking off. I limped inside the safehouse with Kobold, ready to clean up and take it down, and heard the rumble of the truck outside.
Also a good night. We did what we were trying to do, anyway - cause chaos. Hehehehe.
But it didn't turn out so great. Kobold's only got one good arm, since the maniac little girl shot him last week - it'll take at least a month before he's back up to scratch. And according to the quacks at a nearby hospital, I need a leg amputation.
