The Northward Road

The Northward Road is less a road than a long argument with winter. It links keeps, ford towns, ranger shelters, toll gates, ruined shrines, and places where travellers still lower their voices because bodies were once found there. Its milestones carry ward signs more often than distances, for protection matters more than measurement when snow closes behind you. Supply carts groan along it. Judges ride it with armed escorts. Refugees follow its pale stones by moonlight. Whoever controls the road controls whether the Marches can become a realm again, or remain scattered fires in the cold.