The Charm-Cords

The fog-bound Mistways gorge where the Greenwake hang knotted charm-cords across the path so a traveller can feel the way they cannot see — the Greatwood's main door from the Vale.

The gorge is so fog-bound that the Greenwake gave up marking it with stakes and learned to mark it with feeling: cords of braided bark and bone-bead strung at waist height, knotted at every fork in a language of loops the wardens teach and the Gaunt Ledger's surveyors keep trying to buy. It is the Greatwood's door from the Vale and a quiet front line — the Ledger wants the cords down to let timber sledges through; the Greenwake want them up and would like the Ledger to try.