the alley it was difficult to tell.
'Come with me,' said one of the men in black. He led Silverdun and Ironfoot around the corner, where two horses were saddled and waiting. Once they were out of sight of the Unseelie, he pushed back his hood. It was the older of the two guards who had brought them to Wenathn.
'Annwn used to be a good place,' he said. 'Are you truly here to help rid us of the Unseelie?' He peered deeply into Silverdun's eyes.
'We are,' said Silverdun.
The guard handed Silverdun the travel documents that had been taken from them when they'd been captured. 'Take these and ride directly to the river. There's a boat waiting for you there called the Magl,' he said. 'We'll detain these men long enough for you to get there, but no longer.'
Silverdun nodded. He couldn't think of anything to say that didn't sound crass, so he said nothing.
'A little help getting up?' he said to Ironfoot, holding up his stump. Ironfoot helped him mount his horse, and the two of them rode off into the morning.
Once they were safely on board the Magl, which turned out to be a dusty mining barge, the crew escorted them down into a small hold that smelled like dirt and lamp oil. It was close and dark, but Silverdun was grateful nonetheless.
'Unbelievable,' said Ironfoot. 'I can't believe that actually worked.'
Silverdun, however, had been certain that it would. Wenathn wanted to be elected to the high council, but if the tale of their exploit was revealed in open court before the Unseelie proconsul, he'd be excoriated for having botched it so badly. The problem was that he couldn't have released them without making the proconsul's office suspicious, and he'd miss the opportunity to curry favor with them by allowing two spies to go free. The third option was to allow them to escape; not from hint, but from the Unseelie soldiers. That way Wenathn had done his duty as a good little collaborator, and the Unseelie looked stupid in the bargain.
'But,' said Ironfoot, 'won't the truth of all this come out during the Unseelie investigation of our escape?'
'It would, if there were an investigation. But the Unseelie can't allow themselves to be seen losing foreign spies, so they do what all spineless bureaucrats do when they're in trouble.'
'They cover it up.'
'Exactly. It's like it never happened. And now Wenathn is our good friend in Annwn, a man who clearly has no love for the Unseelie, and can almost certainly be influenced once we help get him elected.'
Ironfoot whistled. 'You're a devious son of a whore, Silverdun. I'll give you that.'
'My mother was no whore, but you're right about the other.'
'Well done, then. I suppose our mission was a success.'
Silverdun winced. 'Tell that to my right hand,' he said.
Time on the river crawled. Once the city was behind them they were able to move about freely on deck. The air was fresher, but the view wasn't much better. Outside the city, Annwn was an endless sea of prairie grass, without a single tree or shrub to break up the view. Sometimes they saw animals come to drink at the water, but beyond that, nothing. They took their meals with the crew, who were a taciturn bunch.
On the second day of the journey Silverdun began to feel queasy; his wrist itched. That evening he began to vomit and sweat, and every time the boat rolled in the water he groaned.
On the morning of the third day, he was delirious, remembering things only in bits and pieces. There was the nausea and the dreadful itching and the pitching of the deck. He wanted desperately to scratch at his stump, but Ironfoot kept stopping him. Why did Ironfoot keep stopping him? In a lucid moment he looked at his hand, saw it covered in blood. 'Stop it!' came Ironfoot's voice through the haze. He felt something being tied around his arm, something thick and heavy. When he went to scratch the wrist it wasn't there; there was only thick heavy cloth. He burned and choked and itched.
When he awoke on the fourth morning, he felt light-headed, but the delirium had gone. He was lying out in the open, and the sun hurt his eyes. When he looked down at his right arm he saw that it had been wrapped in a piece of sail and belted to keep him from scratching it. The pain and itching were gone, but he still felt the ghostly sensation of the missing hand straining against the wrappings. It felt impossibly real.
He was on the foredeck, his clothes soaked in sweat. A cool wind blew across the bow, and Silverdun reveled in it.
'You're awake at last,' said Ironfoot. He brought Silverdun a tin cup of
