Max huffed and snorted, struggling against the chain holding him down. The battle for the royal family had begun and he could do nothing to help. He glanced back at the prisoners, nickering in frustration that he could not free them. If only he could get out of these chains…
~~~~o0o~~~
Eugene's head snapped up and he scanned the darkness, looking for the owner of the voice that had begun the battle. He caught sight of Phillip and the ruffians and his heart soared. But an instant later, he remembered the executioner. Eugene looked over to his right and saw the burly pirate, stunned, holding the lever, unsure of what he should do. A harsh voice rose over the crowd.
"Hang him! Hang him now!"
The executioner shook off his reverie just as Eugene began loosening his noose. But the pirate was now aware that Eugene was trying to escape and with practiced ease, yanked the lever and the trapdoor beneath Eugene's feet swung open.
~~~~o0o~~~
Hookhand was leading the ruffians, following Phillip closely. They thundered and shouted as they rushed through the crowd of astonished pirates. Vlad roared as he led the gypsies off in another direction. Hookhand glanced in their direction, glad to see they were making headway. He swung his frying pan left and right, batting aside weapons. Up and down he lashed, bashing helmets and thick chins. Then they heard the shout calling for Eugene's death. Hookhand looked to the gallows.
Eugene reached for the noose at his neck as the executioner woke from his stupor. Hookhand determinedly tossed aside his frying pan and grasped the axe at his back. He drew his arm back, aimed and threw! And he went down under a flood of pirates, his axe on its way to the gallows.
~~~~o0o~~~
Eugene felt the rope jerk, his fingers caught in the noose, and his mind went blank as it focused on one last image: Rapunzel, Sera and Derek together. His breath cut off and everything went dark and Eugene felt himself fly.
And then he hit the ground.
Eugene rubbed his neck, released the noose and, gasping for air, and removed the noose as quickly as he could. He opened his eyes and realized that they had been shut when he fell. Now, he could see the axe stuck in the gallows crosspiece where it had severed his rope.
Eugene laughed and whooped in relief, jumping up and celebrating his being alive. He saw the large pirate executioner before him and ducked his axe swing. His senses returned, Eugene swiftly clambered out of the shallow trapdoor pit and dodged another swing. The axe came a third time, but Eugene was expecting it. He raised his hands and the axe shattered the shackles on his hands and feet before it cut into the wooden platform, sticking.
"Ha! You missed!" Eugene laughed.
The executioner looked up from his stuck axe and Eugene swung a heavy fist at the pirate, catching him square in the jaw and knocking him flat. One thing down, Eugene thought. Now, to more important matters. Eugene grabbed a dagger from the executioner's belt and looked up to see Phillip climbing the stage, fighting off the pirates. Eugene came to help him.
"Good to see you, Phillip!"
"Good to see you alive, Your Majesty!" Phillip replied.
They pushed a pirate back and he tripped, knocking his companions down off the stage and blocking the stairs. A moonbeam shot up from the tower, bringing Phillip's and Eugene's attention around.
"We need to get over there." Phillip said.
Eugene scanned the heads of the crowd until he found Max kicking out from the spot where he was chained. Eugene smiled.
"Perfect."
~~~~o0o~~~
Farren growled angrily as he watched Eugene's rescue from the gallows. He had passed the point of mercy now. The old saying went through his mind: If you want something done right, you should do it yourself.
"Hargis!" He barked.
He grabbed the arm of the woman holding Sera who had now awaken and was crying. Roughly, he pushed her toward the large mass of Hargis.
"Make your way out to the clearing and wait for me! Use the passage!" Farren growled.
Hargis hesitated. "But…you said if things went wrong—"
Farren drew his dagger. "Get out of here. NOW!"
Hargis was taken aback and his face darkened threateningly, but he only turned and ushered the woman away toward the mill. Farren looked to the cages of Derek and Rapunzel to ensure their moonstones were uncovered.
"I'll finish this here and now, once and for all." He muttered to himself.
He spun on his heel, his robes flapping in the air as he made his way to the center moonstone platform and scaled the ladder. At the top, he pushed aside the pirate.
"Out of my way!" he snarled.
Farren reached into his robes and pulled out a folding mirror and a moonstone. He gently removed the silver-blue stone on its pedestal and replaced it with the second moonstone, a blackish grey color, different from the first. Farren's lips curled in a dark smile as he set up his folding mirror around the dark moonstone.
It was one of two he had found, even more rare than the blue kind. Unlike the blue stones which created a healing and strengthening dust, this was a dark stone and when its power was concentrated, its effects were weakening and harmful. Farren had destroyed his second stone in an attempt to combine the power of the blue and black stones. The dark magic of the black stone was incompatible with the healing magic of the blue stone and the results became explosively dangerous in direct contact.
Farren finalized the mirror, making sure it was exactly as he had planned. The mirror was studded on the outside with a fine moonstone dust so it would collect the magic energy of the moonlight without the moonbeam from the central stone and reflect it inside to the dark stone. Farren could then release the energy through a flap in the front. Since the black and blue stones were not touching directly, the resulting magic was not explosive, but instead created a very painful blast. Farren readied the mirror and smiled wickedly.
"Say goodnight to your friends, Eugene Fitzherbert."
Farren turned the mirror so it caught the light of the full moon. The moonstone dust sparkled and glowed. With a flick of the opening flap, Farren released the beam. The dark moonbeam shot forward, striking a ruffian. The ruffian cried out in pain and stumbled before falling down to the ground and was quickly overcome by a couple of pirates.
Farren smiled grimly and turned to find a new target to weaken the attack.
~~~~o0o~~~
Summer pressed her face to the bars of the prisoner's pen. She couldn't see much of the battle behind the moonstone platforms and the pirates nearby, but she could hear it. All the pirates close by were facing the rock, glancing at each other apprehensively. Over the din of the shouting and frying pans she had heard Farren shouting at the pirate Hargis and soon after seen him going to the mill with the woman holding Sera, but that had been minutes ago. Farren was now atop the middle platform.
"Summer! The moonstone!" Thomas cried.
She looked up at the top of the mill tower. A moonbeam shot up from the tower into the night sky.
"We need to get out and help Derek!" Tab said.
"How do we get out of here?" Summer asked.
They could not break the lock because there was nothing they could use. Then Summer spied the pirate guard nearby, the keys to the cells hanging from his belt.
"There! He has the keys!" Summer pointed out.
Thomas thought a moment, then shouted, "Hey, you! The hairy guy there!"
Tab started when Thomas suddenly began shouting.
"What are you doing?" he asked.
"I'm trying to get him closer. Then we can grab the keys." Thomas replied.
Tab and Summer raised an eyebrow simultaneously at him. They're definitely related, Thomas thought. But the idea caught on and Tab nodded encouragement.
"Get him closer; I'll grab him."
Summer and Thomas began shouting and several of the other prisoners, realizing that they were trying to escape, began chiming in. At first, the guard wasn't sure they were talking to him, but he quickly understood that he was being heckled and did not appreciate it. He lumbered over to the pen and shoved his nose between the bars, grabbing them and shaking them angrily. When he spoke, Summer crinkled her nose at his bad breath.
"Whaddaya want?! Hush up or I'll let you have it!"
Tab reached out and grabbed the man's collar, pulling him up to the bars. The pirate looked up at Tab, surprise on his face.
"We only want the keys, thanks." Tab said.
He knocked the pirate over the head with his fist but accidentally let go of his collar when the pirate reeled backward, stunned.
"Oh, no! Quick, grab his keys!" Summer cried in dismay.
The pirate spun groggily near the pen and Thomas reached between the bars and deftly caught the keys. With a firm yank from Thomas and the other prisoners, his belt came loose and the keys with it, causing the pirate to trip over himself and land in an undignified heap.
Tab held the keys up and the prisoners cheered.
"Let's get out of here!"
~~~~o0o~~~
Derek rocked his cage, trying to move along the track, closer to his mother. He reached out and grabbed the bars of Rapunzel's cage, pulling himself forward so that he could reach out and shake his mother.
"Mother! Mother, wake up!" Derek insisted.
He shook Rapunzel's shoulder and she groggily opened one eye.
"Derek, it's not even morning yet." She murmured.
Then the sounds of the battle reached her subconscious and her memory flooded back. She sat bolt upright and looked around.
"Derek! Why are you here? Where's your father?"
Derek grabbed his bars, pressing his face to the cage.
"Father's escaped! But we're still in the cages and Farren hasn't covered the moonstones on our cages. They're starting to glow!"
Rapunzel looked up at the cage, then the tower. A moonbeam shot up to the sky.
"We need to get out of here!" Rapunzel said.
She and Derek looked around for something, anything to use for the locks, but neither she nor Derek could open the cages.
"It's no use! We're stuck." Derek moaned.
He looked up at Farren, his robes flapping as he turned the mirror to and fro, zapping both pirate, ruffian and gypsy alike with his dark moonstone. Derek's gaze drifted downward and caught sight of two familiar figures making their way closer to them.
A large cry from the prisoners as they rushed out of their pen and toward the bridge and windmill brought Derek's attention around. He saw Thomas, Summer and Tab running with them, making their way toward the platforms where Farren stood.
Derek's mind was working now. He just needed to get his mother and himself out of the cages.
"Darrek! Henrik! Over here!"
The Stabbington brothers heard their names and immediately recognized the voice. A quick glance at the tower and Farren assured them of where the voice came from. With greater vigor, they quickly made their way around the moonstone platforms, avoiding Farren's magic. In a few moments, they were standing before the cages of Rapunzel and Derek. Without any prompting, they tried to pick the lock on the cage, but to no avail. Darrek growled in frustration.
"It won't budge. How do we get you out of there?" Darrek asked.
Derek's mind hastily formulated his plan and he relayed instructions to the Stabbington brothers as Rapunzel looked at the two ex-thieves with a mixed look of surprise and curiosity. She glanced between them and her son, listening to his plan.
"Farren sent Hargis to escape with Sera. Can you follow him and stop him from running away?"
Darrek and Henrik shared the same burst of surprise.
"But…what about you?" Darrek asked, glancing at Rapunzel.
"Find something to cover the moonstones!" Derek instructed.
The two exposed moonstones began glowing brighter on their cages as the moonbeam from the tower split and shot down to the two stones on the platforms. Farren glanced up from his stone and hastily replaced the dark stone with the blue stone and removed the mirror. A third beam shot down and Farren covered his eyes from the light. When he uncovered them, he looked down at the cages and saw the Stabbington brothers trying to cover the stones in the cages.
"What! NO!"
He turned and began to descend the ladder.
Rapunzel glanced up at the three moonstones on the platforms and watched them grow brighter.
"No time to cover them!" she said, fearful. "Break the stones on our cages! The stones are fragile!"
The Stabbington brothers shared a glance and looked up at the glowing stones. The light of the stones was nearly blinding to them. Squinting against the bright light, they each swung out and crushed the stones just as a moonbeam connected them all.
The magic of the moonbeams was released in a blast of dust and energy, throwing the Stabbington brothers and Farren, who had been approaching, back several feet. The tops of the cages protected Derek and Rapunzel, but were completely destroyed, allowing the cages to fall to the ground from the smoking rail and tip over, freeing Rapunzel and Derek.
Darrek and Henrik sat up, rubbing their eyes. They saw Derek pointing to the mill tower.
"They went that way!" Derek said.
Darrek and Henrik understood immediately and picked themselves up. Their weapons had been thrown from their hands so they picked up what they could find.
"We're on it." Darrek called back as he and his brother ran off to find and stop Hargis.