Hewngate Keep

A House Vandahl toll-keep on the vale road that the Broken Lances were hired to garrison and simply kept — its gate now a chain across the road and its cells full of the people who used to pay it.

Hewngate was never a great fortress, only a square grey keep and a gatehouse where the vale road pinches between two hills, built to take a Vandahl toll and shelter caravans for the night. House Vandahl, short of coin as ever, hired the Marrow Lances to man it. The wing that came was the Broken kind. They took the first month's pay, took the toll, and then took the keep — and when the next caravan arrived they took that too. Bron Coldhand sits in the toll-hall now and runs it like a business: travellers are inventory, the gate is a chain you buy through or hang from, and the ransom-roll is kept in a fair clerk's hand. The Old Lances know one of their own is in the undercroft, and they are the kind to come for him.