“They are either hostile, or not.”
Twix turns from his dragon to me. “His name is Chip”, he says, grinning .
“Yeah… can Chip protect us from 50 possibly hostile Imperials? Come to think of it have you ever known anyone who wears Imperial clothing *not* to be hostile? We don’t have much time.” I turn to the old Westingshire stove that has been converted to a smoke signal machine. The code book appears to be simply laid out. I open the stove and some coals are still there from this morning when we first spied smoke coming out of this. I throw in some of the wet wood with some of the dry, take the tarp out and vigorously fan them. “Here kid… fan this like your life depends on it.” I say as I hand the tarp to Twix. Just as he begins to do so, the dragonet reappears and seems to scoff at him… and blows a respectable burst into the stove.
“Great.” I hand the code book to Twix, “I need three words, ok? ‘Danger’, ‘Help Now’… ok? Look those up now.”
Thankfully, he doesn’t argue with me and starts leafing through the book. Meanwhile, I take the 4 bottles of whiskey and set them precariously on the edge of the tower wall, propped up by a few pieces of wood which I brace against the hot stove. The dry wood almost immediate starts smoldering on the side that is in contact with the stove. On the top of the little wood rig I made, I put some kindling and light a slow fire. I quickly smash the chairs and distribute the pieces and the remaining dry wood all over the top of the tower stemming out from below the balanced bottles.
“Page 6 and 10. What are you doing?” Twix says as the looks up from the book.
“Setting this to go off in about 14.5 minutes.”
“Go off?”
“Aye. The top of this tower is going to be roaring in flames in a little bit. Give me the book”, which he seems to have forgotten he is holding. I take it, and start to signal the first word using the crude but simple flue. “If grown men run here from that distance, it should take them about 20 minutes. The top of the tower should be rolling in flames by then and buy us more time as they deal with the fire. If it catches them by surprise enough… I might be able to ‘get’ a few of them. The roof might fall in on a bunch of them”
I turn to page 10 and finish the signal. I look out to the crowd down the beach, and sure enough the ones that were ‘glinting’ in the sun are now in a sprint towards us.
“Let’s go kid.” I say as I go down the stairs. “Shut the trap behind you.”
I seem to have stepped into the middle of an awkward moment as I see Dane, Heflam and Bombor all staring at each other.
“Down the floor trap” I say as I grab a torch. “Armed Imperials are running this way and will be here in about 19 minutes.”
“Huh? Armed Imperials? Why are they running here?” Says Heflam, flailing his pretty handbag. It matches his blouse and brings out his eyes.
“Because I told them to.” And with that, I pick the lock on the floor trap, flip it open and run down the now revealed stairs desperately holding the torch in front of me. “Last one through shut the door behind you please!” I shout out over my shoulder.
