Waymarks are a sentence nailed to the land.

A painted staff on the east ridge-mouth: spiral like Hawte’s sign, meaning this way, high. A stone cross at a fork. Lynford’s church tower behind you for anyone who needs to reverse. At Crow’s Oak, later, an oak.

The staff leans toward the marsh like a traitor with tired feet. Hop would follow it. Anyone small would.

You have paint in Osric’s hut, red-brown, enough. A staff upright is a law. A staff leaning is a rumor.

The walking party will want a spine of ground, not a reed-bed.

A leaning staff is a finger toward drowning. Paint will not dry in rain; you still do the uprighting, even if the spiral is a little sad. The stone cross has lichen like a beard. Church tower, west, pins Lynford so you can reverse the list if the ridge refuses you.