Snowshut

The last walled waystation on the upper road before the hold's wardens take over: stores, fresh animals, and the escort, a Hobgoblin compact watch, and a dozen households who keep the place. Snow closes the road above it for months each winter, and a caravan that reaches it late waits there for spring or loses its animals trying to go on. Its walls carry the claw-marks of the pass bear that came over them three autumns running before the watch killed it, and its skull hangs over the gate, where every hired beast-hunter who passes touches it for luck.