The Rimeward

The Korl homeland — a cold fjord continent north-east across the water, grown around the Frostcrown itself — the grave-mountain anchors its south-western end and is the continent's gate, all sheer ranges falling into black sea. The far cold country the Korl came down from into the Vale, and where the High Moot keeps its true seat.

Lowlanders always half-knew the Korl came from somewhere colder than the Rampart, and the Rimeward is that somewhere: a fjord-cut land of range-curtains climbing to seven hundred metres and dropping sheer to water, a day-and-a-third of hard sailing north-east past the flanks of the Frostcrown. Its people ferry their honoured dead across that same water to lay them on the sacred mountain, so the crossing is a burial road as much as a trade road. The High Moot's holds gather here at Windcut Hold, high in a fjord-pass above the landing; the old toll-hold of the same name back on the Rampart is a garrison ruin now, kept only in the name of the crossing. Cold does not bite a Korl, and the Rimeward asks for that gift every day of the year.