Chapter Text
The closer they got to the fortress, the more apparent it became that they would need to figure out a way of getting past the moat of lava.
Milo had no doubts that Bisco on a good day could vault the whole thing and land easily on the other side before scaling the hundred-foot-high walls that surrounded the rest of the buildings.
But there had to be an easier way. The people that dwelled inside had to get in and out of here somehow, and they couldn’t all be winged the girl who’d warned him about Pawoo’s kidnapping. Not when their semi-sentient henchmen were all non-flying rabbit-like creatures.
"Come 'ere,” Bisco said, pulling out his bow.
Milo obliged, though with a little concern. He’d rather not get shot at if he could avoid it, but as ever, Bisco was stubbornly opaque about what he was thinking. For someone so direct when he spoke, he managed to pull off a pretty watertight unreadable expression.
So he tried not to think anything of it as Bisco wrapped an arm around him, and tried not to react as he tightened his grip and just touched the sensitive ticklish spot right beneath Milo’s ribs. He was barely thinking anything at all as Bisco shot his arrow right at the ground below their feet, and waited a few seconds as if something would happen.
And then it did.
The two of them were rocketed off the ground, ascending higher and higher until the wall surrounding the fortress seemed barely any height at all compared to the huge mushroom that was propelling them into the air, its soft spongy cap giving just slightly under their weight.
Bisco held him tight as they flew up above the walls, and grinned as his hair billowed in a crimson cloud around him, every inch the ferocious Redcap the stories warned of.
Milo leaped with him across the chasm between the edge of the mushroom and the narrow pathway that ran its way along the inside of the wall, sparsely occupied by more of the rabbits.
Before any of them could leap at him, Milo grabbed his bow, nocking an arrow wildly before shooting at the nearest one. Its shoulder gave out as the arrow pierced right through it. As it fell away, another rose up to take its place, lunging forwards right as they landed.
Milo rolled, momentarily losing Bisco until a hand grabbed him from behind and pulled him up to standing.
"They're gonna know we're here soon. We gotta get down to the middle before the guy in charge finds us. Cover my back. I'll get us down in a sec."
Milo shot another one, close enough that the point-blank arrow to its heart had to have killed it. "You think I'll be able to keep up with all of them?"
"You remember what I showed you, right? Jus' aim and believe you're gonna hit it. I believe you can do it, anyway."
As another few rabbits rounded the corner, Milo yanked an arrow out of the dead one in front of him, wincing at the weak spray of blood that soaked his hand. The shaft was still intact enough to use again, and he loaded it onto the bow before setting it loose.
Two skewered themselves on it, clawing each other apart with their claws as their energy dwindled. Milo couldn’t but watch in morbid horror as they prised themselves apart just in time to collapse into a pool of their own blood, seemingly oblivious to the pain of death.
He didn’t get any longer to ponder it; several more leaped up from some hidden point below, loping across the space between him and them in great long strides.
He shot the first, and it fell, tipping from the side of the open path into the void beside it, hitting the ground a hundred feet below with a heavy, wet crunch. Another arrow, and another body fell, taking another shot with it.
With his right hand, he reached back to grab another arrow from his quiver, and came back empty.
The final rabbit approached, slower now, as if it had realised his defencelessness.
“Bisco…”
“Just a second longer.”
Milo gripped his bow. “I don’t think we have a second.”
It was barely a yard away. He tried not to flinch, tried to hold on, tried to will Bisco to hurry up with whatever he was facing at Milo’s back.
The thing’s claws reached out, blade-like fingers snatching at Milo’s face.
He grabbed Bisco from behind and jumped.
For a moment, his heart floated loose in his chest; untethered by the thought that he hadn’t held on tight enough and had left Bisco in the path of the rabbit’s claws.
But then he saw the flailing mess of man above him, cloak and red hair streaming behind him as he fell, hands reaching out towards Milo, just inches out of reach. So close Milo could almost touch him, almost connect them as they fell.
He knew it was better to fall than to be impaled by that creature, but now it was either a painful landing, or death. The distance was too great for either of them to stand a chance of being in fighting condition by the time they landed. But still, it would get them closer to Pawoo.
Closer to saving her, even if they ended up captive themselves until they healed enough to break all three of them out of here.
He closed his eyes, bracing for the impact of the ground against his back.
Something grabbed his arm, yanking it almost out of its socket as it pulled him to a halt, then swung him right into the side of a wall, just a touch more gently than he had imagined contact with the ground would have been.
He opened them again, and was met with the blinding brilliance of Bisco’s smile, unbroken and fearless. “You really thought I’d let us die that easy?”
It was only a little drop the rest of the way to the ground, and once Bisco had rewound the rope-arrow and stowed it back into his bag, they scurried round the edge of the cluster of buildings that stood within the wall’s protection.
Despite all the fighting earlier, this courtyard was devoid of life. And devoid of any way out other than a set of double doors embedded in the front of the largest building of the group – a bulky tower that was half again the height of the walls, its flat face pock-marked with window slits.
There was nowhere to go but to them, and with Milo’s lack of spare arrows, he’d rather head in than wait for some more rabbits to show up when he had nothing to fight them off with. Even if Bisco could easily shoot down enough for the both of them, it was a disconcerting feeling to be aware that he would be dead within seconds if he were to have come here alone.
He pushed through the doors first, leaving Bisco just behind him to take one final check of the suddenly empty battlements before they stepped into the shadows together.
Even after dark, the lava surrounding the fortress had managed the job of beating back the night-time, its orangey glow painting everything an endless burning sunset, bouncing off the walls that kept it outside of the inner courtyard. In small, regular intervals, gaps at the bottom of the wall allowed streams of it to trickle in around the edge of the ground, pouring into some invisible place behind the main building, its feeble light just enough to allow the descent into the room inside to momentarily snatch at Milo’s vision.
When it returned, a vast hall greeted him, completely unlit except for a single spot at its far end where an open skylight let in the glow of the lava from outside.
And in the circle of molten light that pooled on the floor stood two figures – one upright in the way that a bent twig shoved hastily into the ground is upright; the other slouched half over the floor, half against the couple of steps that led up to the plateau where the first figure stood.
“You’ve finally made it this far, I see. And you brought the Redcap.”
Bisco growled back before Milo could answer, “you’ve no reason to be messin’ with him, Kurokawa.”
Kurokawa stepped further into the light, letting it shine bleak hollows into his gaunt face. “Oh, but I do. I need a mortal doctor to make the cure for Rust.”
“You already have all the ingredients for it,” Milo said. “That’s what your underling told me. Is it really that hard to mix a few things together the right way?”
He stepped forwards a little more, veering towards the illuminated patch like a moth to a torch.
The other figure had yet to speak, or react in any way at all. From this distance, it was almost impossible to tell if they were even conscious – or alive.
Something tense and heavy flipped in Milo’s stomach.
“Where’s my sister?”
Kurokawa cocked his head to one side. “You don’t recognise her?”
The glow of lava stung Milo’s eyes as he ran through it, ignoring the leer of the man beside him as he pressed his fingers to Pawoo’s wrist, then her neck, trying to find some sign of vitality.
His fingers met with her pulse at the same time they did with a patch of Rust.
The last time he’d seen her, it had barely breached the top of her chest, more down her left arm than anywhere else. But now, as he surveyed her more closely, it had entirely circled her neck and was creeping up dangerously close to her face.
“How’s it progressed that fast? Even if she hadn’t taken anything for it, she was nowhere near this bad less than a week ago. What have you done to her?”
Kurokawa shrugged like it was nothing, a wry smile spreading like a slow cut into a block of soft cheese. “Well, if you don’t mix the cure right, it seems to speed the process up rather than heal it.”
“And you tested it on my sister?” he almost shouted. The echo bounced off the walls, throwing itself back at him.
“She wasn’t the first. But you needed some incentive to come here, didn’t you? And now you have to make the cure.” He extended a hand, fingers long and spindly. “It’s a win-win.”
Milo stared at it. This man – Fae, whatever – had kidnapped Pawoo and turned what was already a serious case of Rust into the worst he’d seen without it being fatal within a day. Even with the strongest medicine to delay it, Pawoo had at most hours to live before it turned every muscle in her body brittle as dust.
No way was he trusting this bastard.
“I could just take her and find my own.”
“And hope that she survives the day-long trip to where the Rust-eaters grow?” Kurokawa laughed. “Do you even know where they are?”
Bisco snarled, “it’s close enough from ‘ere. We could make it.”
Milo looked up at him, squinting at the radiant orange tones that shone a hundred times brighter in Bisco’s hair, and caught like flames in his eyes. “She’s got hours, Bisco. At most.”
Faster than Milo’s eyes could follow, Bisco drew his bow, snatching it off his back and levelling the tip of an arrow at the unguarded soft flesh of Kurokawa’s neck. “So where’re the ingredients?”
Kurokawa laughed, as easily as if Bisco were a harmless child brandishing a stick at his knees in lieu of a sword. “There’s no need for that here. I’m happy to show you. And I wouldn’t be so sure that you two would make it out of here if you did manage to kill me.”
As if waiting for that cue, several of the rabbit-creatures slunk out of the darkness, surrounding them in a loose formation.
“They’ll lead you to it. And if you still feel like killing me after that, they’ll be plenty capable of dispatching you too.”
Bisco growled and reluctantly lowered the bow. He stowed the arrow back in his quiver.
Scooping Pawoo into his arms, Milo let the rabbits guide them through the darkness of the hall and through doors that led to a set of narrow spiral stairs, corkscrewing up into the depths of the building, passing the occasional roughly carved-out windows he’d seen from the outside.
Eventually, it spat them out into a narrow corridor, with regularly spaced doors every few yards or so.
The leading rabbit pushed one open, and their convoy halted outside of it, waiting patiently for Milo and Bisco to step inside. When they did, one of the things shut the door abruptly behind them, sealing them inside.
Milo carefully deposited Pawoo onto the rickety cot that lay pushed up against one damp brick wall, then turned to the mess sprawled across the desk that took up the rest of the space in the small chamber.
“You think you can do anythin’ with this?” Bisco asked, eyeing up the pile of mushrooms and try full of half-empty vials.
“I’ll have to, I guess. But this is a mess. And if it’s done nothing but poison people so far, the chances are good the whole batch is rotten.”
But still, with Kurokawa keeping them locked up in here, with no answers or promise of freedom, he had no choice but to hope there was some way of concocting a solution from the Rust-eater and whatever else they had left for him.
The test tubes that contained the remnants of whatever tests had been done before were caked with their contents, half-dried and sticking to the sides, as if whatever had been in them had gone horribly off. Milo only hoped it hadn’t been like that when they’d given it to someone.
He pulled the stopper off the most hopeful-looking one and gave it a tentative sniff.
It was rancid. Quickly, he replaced the stopper and shoved aside the useless vials.
Pawoo was lying there right next to him, probably dying, and all he had to work with was a bunch of mushrooms that stank like they were well past the point of usefulness, and had turned out nothing but poison so far.
He crushed some of the mushroom into the mortar and pestle that had been left unused on the side. It thickened into a paste under his hands, letting out a rancid smell as Milo tried to coax it into a usable form.
As he worked, Bisco sat back against the wall, watching Milo's struggle to concoct some kind of medicine from the Rust-eater.
But by the time he'd crushed it all down and strained the thickest parts out, there was still no way he could confidently administer it to Pawoo. It looked like much the same messy remains that clung to the half-empty vials that had poisoned her already.
Any more and it would kill her.
This stuff was useless. He couldn't risk giving it to Pawoo unless he was sure it would work, and there was no trusting it in this form. Not when Pawoo was hours away from death, and any wrong move would only hasten the process.
Milo cursed and set down the mortar.
"You alright?"
"She's going to die, and the cure has to be right here, somewhere, but I can't find it. I'm going to kill her because I know I can't fix it."
Bisco pushed off from the wall, his cloak swishing as he went to stand behind Milo, hands a steadying weight on Milo's shoulders. "You're a bloody marvel, Milo. If you can't save her now, there's nothin' anyone could do. But there's still a little time, right?"
Milo turned, spotting the glint in Bisco's eyes that matched the spark of hope in his voice. He waited, expectant.
"We can make it to the Edge of Faerie in time. Actagawa can make it." Bisco grinned. "I'll get us outta here, an' Actagawa'll take us the rest of the way."
"But there's no time. What Kurokawa said-"
"Didn't count for Actagawa. 'sides, it's better than waitin' here for her to die, right?"
Milo hesitated for a second, thinking of how easy it would be for Pawoo to just slip from the Edge, to tip from Faerie to the Underworld beyond it just as they brought her to the Rust-eater that could save her.
"Fine. Let's go."
Bisco walked up to the door, testing it carefully before taking a step back and thrusting his foot into it, smashing right past the lock and into the corridor outside.
As Milo once again picked up Pawoo into his arms – and cursed the genetics that made her almost a head taller than him – Bisco shot another mushroom into the empty hole of a window. It blasted wide open as a mushroom sprouted into existence, leaving a gaping hole plenty wide enough for the two of them to leap out of.
Milo let Bisco grab him as they jumped together into the void outside, and swung awkwardly across the distance between the building and the fortress’ outer walls.
When they landed roughly on the far side, Pawoo let out a low groan, face contorting in pain before she slipped back into the deeper clutches of whatever pain was keeping her unconscious.
At the top of the wall, Bisco stuck two fingers in his mouth and piped out a sharp whistle.
The responding rumble came faster than the rabbits could, shaking the foundations of the fortress for long seconds before Actagawa burst forth from the red sand, already halfway to them from where they had left him, and closing in at a speed Milo was sure he couldn’t have been going when they rode him before.
Bisco only had to shoot a single arrow before Actagawa skidded to a halt at the far side of the moat, clicking his claws impatiently until Bisco scooped Milo up into his arms and threw him like a hay bale onto Actagawa’s saddle.
In the seat, Milo carefully adjusted Pawoo, dragging her out of Bisco’s way as he landed heavily at his side and grabbed the reins.
Actagawa tore off, leaving them to hold on for dear life while Milo tried to ensure Pawoo hadn’t been killed by the fall. Her pulse was at the same sluggish rhythm he had felt before, reluctant in her chest, but still beating. For now.
He watched tiny figures standing silhouetted by the glow of the lava at the top of the battlements, long ears standing on end as they faded into the darkness of the night.
By the time the light of the fortress was gone completely, the desert had swallowed them whole, leaving only the relentless rush of sand under Actagawa’s claws, and the slow, uneven breathing of Pawoo resting in Milo’s arms.
“How long?” he asked, again.
Time moved differently when the blackness of their surroundings made it impossible to track their progress, and the stars stayed stubbornly absent from the sky. He felt like an impatient child, yet it could have been hours or seconds between each time he asked. And with the gap between, Pawoo only sank closer to death.
“Not far. Listen,” Bisco said, his voice steady and still somehow free of the irritation Milo had anticipated.
He did, following the susurration of Actagawa’s legs against the desert sand. And then, low like distant thunder rolling in time with stampeding horses, the rush of something else. Something dark and frothing and heavy with tonnes of water. And then, so distant it barely ghosted over the sound of churning sand, the nautical scream of those same tonnes tossing themselves like doomed lovers from the Edge of the World.
“We’ll be able to find ‘em soon. And then your sister will be fine.” Bisco pulled on the reins, and the shuffling of Actagawa’s claws softened to a dull roar. “There’s a torch in one of the packs. If you grab it, the lighter should be in ‘ere somewhere.”
Milo reached round behind him, feeling through the dark until he found one and pulled off the flap. A wide staff wrapped in a cover to keep the flammable oil from dripping everywhere met his fingers and he extricated it, untying the wrap before handing it to Bisco.
In the dark, it was impossible to see what exactly Bisco did, but there was a sudden noise like a scraping against rope, and then the torch was ablaze, shedding light in a small halo around Actagawa as he trundled slowly onwards.
Shadows sat like giants just outside of the torch’s reach, not quite visible, yet the presences hung all the more grimly over them for the small circle of light.
Milo reached over Pawoo and pulled the reins tight, waiting for Actagawa to stop completely.
“This is it, right?”
Silently, Bisco raised the torch, lifting it like a trophy above his head until it flared above him and illuminated the edges of vast stalks shooting up from the ground. He stood, and handed the torch to Milo.
With one hand, he pulled out an arrow from his quiver, fingers running lightly over the fletching until they caught on the one he needed and pulled it out, bringing it up in one smooth motion to catch on the bowstring. Milo watched as Bisco dipped the head of it into the flaming oil of the torch, then shot it almost directly upwards.
“Isn’t that going to come back down on us?” Milo asked, holding a little tighter to Pawoo as he watched the glowing end of the arrow disappear into the night.
“Jus’ watch.”
For a few seconds, nothing happened.
Then, almost from nowhere, an explosion of both noise and light, ricocheting in a starburst of orange flares, lighting several huge mushrooms almost the size of the king trumpet Bisco had set off to get them into the fortress.
Milo flinched at the blast of noise, and jumped from Actagawa’s saddle into the dark sand below.
They had made it. The mushrooms were here, and Pawoo was still alive. Still holding on enough that he stood a chance of curing her. The weight of her in his arms felt barely a thing now, with the burden of her life just a little lighter at the prospect of finally being able to save her.
Home would be soon, too, though not until he’d survived whatever thrashing Pawoo intended to give him once she recovered enough from the Rust to give it to him. She would likely need a good while to be angry at him before she forgave him diving off the Edge of the World to go to Faerie alone for her.
Bisco tossed him a knife from the pack, and allowed Milo to direct him as he held the torch up for Milo to see which bits of the Rust-eater he was cutting.
The sample didn’t need to be huge, but he’d need to take some from the cap and the stalk to be sure that he would be able to extract the cure from it.
With the equipment he’d brought in his satchel, which had been safely stowed in the saddle for the duration of their escapade, Milo started to prepare the mushroom, drawing it out into its purest form until it started to take shape.
By the time he had thinned it down into something that he could possibly give to Pawoo, the first faint traces of dawn were creeping over the horizon, long strobes of pale sunlight clawing at the tops of the Rust-eaters and lighting the sand a dusky purple.
“I think it’s ready.”
Bisco hopped over, chewing on the last remains of leftover food that he had been sharing with Actagawa. He peered at the syringe full of liquid. “You gonna test it now?”
“There’s not enough time for anything else.” Milo sighed. “It’s barely even sterile, but this will have to do. There’s no time now with the condition Pawoo’s in.”
A deadened laugh echoed over the tops of the mushrooms. “And you had all that potential, yet you decided to run with that worthless Redcap instead?”
Milo’s head snapped up in time to see Kurokawa leap easily down from one of the Rust-eaters and pluck the needle from his fingers.
“Shame you couldn’t have done this back at my place.” He laughed. “But this’ll still kill her.”
“Huh?” Milo grunted, at the same time that Bisco said,
“How’d you get ‘ere so fast?”
Kurokawa laughed. “There’s more to the Rust cure than mere Rust-eaters. Otherwise I would have had to employ another method of incapacitating your sister. Or perhaps we would not have needed you at all, and I could have killed her.”
Milo growled. “You wish you were strong enough to kill her.”
“I could kill all of you three in an instant. Do not underestimate the extent of my mercy. It only touches you now because your continued existence benefits me.” He paused, taking a few moments to paste on a thick, shit-eating grin. “As for getting here, I have my ways. Certain underlings prove useful in ways that make up for their failings in other areas. But what I really need right now is your friend.”
“Why would you need him? You called him worthless a few seconds ago.”
He shrugged. “I lied.”