23 Chapter 23 - Broken Wheel (1/2)

Crack!

Stella gave a small shriek as she was thrown from her seat. Joseph went flying as well, hitting the wall hard. The carriage came to an abrupt halt, and knocking came at the door.

”Little master! Are you all right? The carriage seems to have broken a wheel!”

Climbing to their feet, Joseph opened the door and stumbled out.

Sure enough, the front left wheel had completely shattered. It looked like they hit a pothole in the stone paved road. As he glanced back and forth, it was clear that the entire road was in disrepair, which was very odd.

As Stella climbed out of the carriage, slaves began arriving to start unpacking the carriage of all their belongings and taking them to his father's carriage.

”Joseph, is everything alright? I was told the wheel on your carriage, oh my.” His father showed up, panting a little, and gazed at the damage.

”That thing is completely useless. Every since I bought it, it's had one issue after another.”

”The handle is loose again as well,” added Joseph.

”Well, none of the wheels I have will fit it, and even the axel is a different size, so trying to replace all four wheels won't do much good. We'll leave it for now, and get you a new one.”

Everyone worked very quickly, and before an hour was up, the caravan was back up and running.

The road continued to get worse, and the drivers were having to slow down a lot in order to ensure another wheel wasn't broken.

”Don't get it,” William muttered, looking out the door at the poor state of the road. ”Every town is responsible for a section of the main road, to ensure that it never gets this bad. I know there was a storm just the other day, but we should be seeing workers out here, repairing it.”

”How far are we from the next town?” asked Joseph, curiously.