Karth Bridge

A lonely watch-tower and timber ford where the north road crosses the Karth — House Vandahl's last post before the tribes' country.

Past Karth Bridge the road forgets House Vandahl's banners and remembers the tribes. The sergeant who holds it has not been relieved in two seasons and has stopped expecting to be. The Karth runs fast and cold beneath, fed from the snows of the Rampart. A lonely garrison that never gets relieved does the other thing a lonely garrison always does: it grows a waystation around itself. A camp-follower's fire, a swap-shed for spare tack and cold-kit, a healer who treats the sergeant's men and takes coin from whoever else needs it, a strongbox for a traveler who won't carry silver into Rime Skinner country, and a board by the tower door where the sergeant nails up the coin he'd pay to see the road cleared — none of it grand, none of it a town, but enough that the North Stair isn't the last warm door after all.