Tovin struck Joss’s hand away from the catch.
The blow jarred his ribs.
Joss caught himself against the trolley without falling, and kept his right fingers on the lower strap.
Across the rig, Tan hauled the southern turnrope.
The hook eye swung half a foot toward the flood channel.
“Clear the barrier,” Joss told the officer.
Tovin grabbed the rig’s brake handle.
“Leave it.”
The officer saw the loaded shoes shifting on the stones.
He moved the clerks behind the yard wall instead of debating which instruction sounded official.
Joss turned the catch a quarter.
Inside the frame, a narrow support length unfolded through the prepared release mouth.
It was the same process that had thrown a plank at his shin, held to the shape of an old carrier throat instead of spilling through a torn strap.
He couldn’t keep the whole bridge in his hands if that mouth split.
The rated sixty-two already pressed against supports at a worse angle than the river bank.
He held the touched strap, keeping the rest bounded while the exposed length met Tovin’s coupling stop.
Iron pushed against iron.
The rig began turning.
Tovin hauled the brake lever upward.
Its rear shoe dug into the stone.
He was buying time for his men to reach the frame, and he nearly bought enough.
A pole struck the trolley’s upper rail.
Latch gripped its cradle before the corner could slide.
Joss kept his feet planted and let the trolley rail absorb the strike.
The damaged wood split.
Tan swung the doorway panel across the next pole’s path.
Its hinge shuddered but held.
Davi climbed onto the rig’s clear side and put both hands on the coupling pin.
It didn’t move.
“Loaded,” he shouted.
Joss had expected it to slide once the rail turned.
Tovin’s brake was keeping the eye trapped hard against the pin.
He could ease the release and let the rig settle.
Then they would be where they’d started, with Tovin already reaching for his knife.
He looked at the flood channel.
Len held the rope around the post.
Dema’s thick coil ran across the scoured brick, exactly where Tan had set the turn.
The rope was all that kept the rig from turning too far and dragging the frame after it.
Joss needed the turn to finish.
“Tan.
Frame first.”
She locked the doorway dolly’s wheels and pushed its lower edge against the trolley cradle.
That gave the old frame a physical wall on the safe side.
Latch climbed higher inside it, moving away from the leaking seam.
Joss released another finger’s width at the catch.
The pressure climbed toward his limit.
He couldn’t hold that angle long.
The bridge support pushed the coupling eye farther against the brake’s last shoe.
Seventy-eight on the plate.
The touched strap trembled under his fingers.
He kept the path against the doorway’s braced lower edge rather than leaning into it himself.
Tan’s earlier chocks held the panel.
He had nothing left to offer the load from his chest.
Scoured brick broke beneath it.
The brake shoe fell into the channel.
The coupling pin loosened.
Davi pulled it free.
The receiver half slid out of Tovin’s rig onto the sloping yard stones.
Len and two dock workers caught it with the handbarrow rather than their bodies.
It struck hard enough to break the barrow’s outer wheel.
They had the rail.
“Away,” Joss said.
Tan pulled the bridge cradle behind the doorway.
He closed the catch as soon as its support length cleared the coupling eye.
The old ribs swallowed it back into their bounded shape, scraping his wrist with pressure until it settled.
The needle dropped away from eighty.
Tovin’s rig didn’t settle.
Its lower shoe had broken the channel wall.
Floodwater poured beneath the remaining supports, taking the packed grit out from under them.
Dema’s rope drew tight around the rear turnring.
Len couldn’t release it without putting his hand beside the running coil.
“Cut it,” Joss shouted.
Len used Davi’s knife.
The rope snapped free.
Tovin still held the brake lever on the rig’s upper side.
He looked once toward the open yard, then back at the receiver half sliding away with the dock workers.
He tried to jump after it.
The rig’s rear section folded into the channel before his boot left the brake platform.
Wood, iron, and floodwater disappeared beneath the broken lip.
Joss saw Tovin’s gray coat go with them.
Then the second sled toppled over the first.
The crash ended the fight.
One of the marshal’s men dropped his pole and ran toward the collapsed rig.
Tan stopped him at the edge.
“Ground’s gone.”
They waited through the grinding, calling Tovin’s name twice.
No voice answered.
When the water cleared enough to see, the platform lay crushed beneath the iron shoes.
Nobody could have survived there.
Joss leaned against the doorway.
He had intended to break the ambush rig.
Watching the man vanish inside it made intention heavier than the plan had felt on paper.
Tan took his wrist, checked the line, then his breathing.
“Sit before you fall.”
He sat on the yard stones.
His ribs burned, but he could draw air.
His left palm had opened under its dressing where he’d caught the trolley.
Latch climbed out of the cradle and stood beside his knee.
Its crooked lid gave one soft tap.
“We’re going back,” Joss said.
The holding officer returned with his board.
He looked at the broken rig, the matching receiver stamp, and the original removal order Tan had carried behind the shield.
“I’ll record the ground failure,” he said.
“Record the cut support pin too,” Joss replied.
“And who removed the rail.
Both witnesses are here.”
The officer didn’t promise justice.
He wrote the names.
The marshal’s remaining man came back from the channel edge.
His hands were empty.
“Someone has to tell his household,” he said.
Joss hadn’t known Tovin had one.
He looked toward the buried brake platform.
“Give the officer the address.”
The man looked at the board and obeyed.
He didn’t help haul the receiver.
He stood beside the yard wall while the officer recorded another name, this one for a message that wouldn’t contain any freight.
Joss waited until Tan had put a fresh pad over his palm before standing.
The movement made his side seize.
She let him recover instead of filling the silence.
When he could speak, he asked the officer to list the broken rig’s loose tools beside Tovin’s name, separate from the dock’s receiver.
They used the last seal flask to redress the damaged frame before moving it.
Half the oil closed the hook tear; the rest stayed in Tan’s bag.
The needle settled at sixty-two once their temporary foot stood on sound yard stones.
Davi and Len loaded the second receiver half onto a repaired barrow.
Two old doorway rollers replaced its broken wheel.
The salvage was already paying a cost nobody had put on the invoice.
Inside the rig’s fallen inspection box, the officer recovered the marshal’s schedule.
He read it, frowned, and gave Joss a copy of the relevant line.
REED ROUTE SEIZURE: FOLLOWING RESTORATION OF SAFE CROSSING.
They meant to let the dock make the bridge valuable again before taking it.
Joss folded the page carefully.
This time, he wasn’t going to carry the news alone.