The Wind-Cut Pass

A cairn-marked saddle between two peaks — the one foot-crossing of the Northern Rampart, where the wind is said to speak at dusk. The Korl toll-hold that once guarded it is a garrison ruin now; the High Moot keeps its true seat back home on the Rimeward at Windcut Hold.

High on the Rampart, between two snow-shouldered peaks, the wind has cut a saddle low enough to cross on foot. Generations of cairns mark the line a traveller must hold or be lost; the topmost stones are furred with rime. At dusk the wind funnels through and makes a sound the tribes call speaking, and will not cross after. Those who must, go quickly. Beside the line stand the roofless walls of the old toll-hold the Korl once kept here to work the crossing — a garrison ruin now, left behind when the High Moot drew back over the water to its true seat on the Rimeward, the far cold country the Korl came down from. The name went with them: their seat there is Windcut Hold, and this is only the pass it was named for.