The ledge had moved six inches inward.
Joss saw it because Dema’s chalk mark still sat on the warehouse wall.
On their first journey, the outer wheel had passed directly below the mark.
This morning, that position ended over the river.
Tan put the cart brake on.
“Someone’s been bringing freight this way.”
Dark ruts curved along the remaining stones.
The same marks had saved a route around the depot groove; now they led into a narrowing strip that looked as if it had been built to guide a cart into the water.
Joss walked ahead without the load.
His repaired palm was stiff under its lighter dressing.
He used his right hand on the wall bolts.
Under the next rut, a cobble turned on its edge.
He stepped sideways onto unmarked stone.
It stopped.
“Don’t follow the tracks,” he called.
Tan backed the cart onto the broad platform behind them.
Latch planted its repaired foot against the cradle’s edge, helping keep the oil and salt crate from rattling.
The plate held without rubbing, but three ordinary pads still slipped on wet wood.
She noted that, then looked at the road.
Orren’s buyer would reach Wellmouth through the paid road while they stood deciding how much river they could afford to fall into.
Joss checked the route card.
Another ledge ran below the old ropewalk, wider but broken at a turn.
They’d need a new wheel path to reach it without following the channel opening beneath the cart ruts.
“Spare wheel,” he said.
Tan took it off the rear hook.
“We lose this, we walk after the next broken rim.”
“We keep it here, we may walk now.”
She gave it to him.
They fixed the wheel to a short axle made from a loose yard pole.
Two stones in a hanging sack gave it enough weight to cut a fresh track in the muddy edge of the lane.
Joss pulled it toward the old ruts while Tan kept the real cart on the dry platform.
The cobbles turned beneath the decoy’s track.
He led it farther along the narrowing ledge, then looped its towline around a wall bolt so it kept scraping forward while he returned across the unmarked inner strip.
They had watched the road follow a moving load beneath the bridge.
Here, the smaller weight bought only a smaller distraction.
Already, the first stones behind him had begun turning back toward the cart.
Tan pushed.
Joss guided the outside handle lightly, taking no heavy strain through his chest.
The old carrier cradle was empty; the stabilization kit occupied one binding.
Their ordinary supplies rode where her load test had placed them.
At the broken turn, Tan laid two short platform boards across the gap.
Their ends rested on sound supports she’d tested with the hammer.
Joss guided the wheel over each, then lifted the loose boards behind them.
The decoy wheel fell into the river before the real cart reached the lower ledge.
The towline snapped tight, pulling a wall bolt halfway free.
Tan looked at the missing spare hook on her cart.
“We record that cost,” she said.
“We do.”
They kept moving until the road’s clicking stopped behind them.
Beyond the warehouses, the old river route became a strip of stone between reeds and low mud banks.
Joss had used it as a boy, when his father carried nets upriver and Bess tried to count every landing post.
The memory made him step toward a familiar turn.
Tan caught his sleeve.
“Current ground.”
He looked down.
The old turn lay beneath a fresh mud fan.
A faint wheel scar cut straight through it, disappearing where the reeds leaned inward.
“I remember the post,” he said.
“You remember where it was.”
He took the survey hook out and measured the mud before going farther.
The first firm surface sat beyond its reach.
They went around by a higher gravel bank, spending another half hour and none of their skin.
At the next receiving platform, a metal cap covered the conduit socket.
Tan checked it without opening anything.
The fitting was intact and dry.
That mattered to their return journey; a wellhead would need a supported place to rest and renew its seal before the final outlet.
Joss drew the gravel detour onto the route card.
He marked the platform beside it and crossed out the childhood turn.
It felt worse than drawing a new road.
He was removing a thing he had expected to rely on.
Tan waited until he finished.
“Good survey,” she said.
He put the hook away.
“Ask me when we’re back.”
On a broad stone platform above the marsh, Joss lowered the cart’s pressure foot and unbound the stabilization kit for inspection.
Nothing had leaked.
They ate an early meal from the three marks of provisions and let his ribs rest.
Tan fitted a second grip plate to Latch’s rear foot while they waited.
The creature kept its lid open, holding the offered pad in place with one blunt tooth while she set the rivet.
It tested the new foot against stone, then wet timber.
The timber grip held.
On stone, it still slid when Joss pulled too hard.
“Two down,” Tan told it.
“Try wearing them out in the same order.”
Latch tapped her hammer handle.
She gave it a dry rope scrap instead.
Joss studied the marsh route while they worked.
The lower conduit on Nera’s card ran under it, passing two receiver posts and an old reservoir platform before Wellmouth.
That platform could support their first overnight stop.
It was occupied.
Smoke rose behind a barricade of salvage doors.
A dozen people worked around a cart stripped for firewood.
Their water barrels stood empty beneath a gutter that hadn’t caught rain in days.
Tan saw the barrels first.
Joss saw the three people with spears.
He stopped beyond spear range.
“Through route to Wellmouth,” he called.
“Two travelers.
Prepared supplies.”
The man at the barricade wore a leather coat with its sleeves cut away.
He didn’t point his spear at Joss, but he didn’t set it down.
“Rill Camp,” he said.
“Kett Mor.
Toll road’s east.”
“Price is north of what we can pay.”
“Then you took the route somebody else maintains.”
Joss looked at the reservoir’s cleared channel.
Kett’s people had kept it free of driftwood, fitted a handrail, and laid planks over a broken outlet stair.
“Fair,” he said.
“What does passage cost?”
Kett looked at the salt bricks beneath the food bed.
“You carrying a head out of Wellmouth?”
“If they agree to it.”
“That conduit used to water this reservoir.
The toll office shut it when we stopped paying camp rent.”
Behind him, a younger man reached toward a cart hook as if already calculating how much the oil crate would sell for.
Kett moved the spear sideways, blocking him without turning.
“Talk first,” he said.
Joss checked the source line on the route card.
The reservoir had a prepared receiving socket.
Somebody had bolted a blank plate over it.
They needed passage.
These people needed what he was traveling to collect.
“Show me the fitting,” he said.
“Then we’ll discuss a price that isn’t all your water leaving with my cart.”