The valley was no more than a hundred strides now from one cliff to the other, and a wall was built across it. An ancient and crumbling wall of rough blocks, so full of cracks, so coated with creeper, brambles, seeding grass, that it seemed almost part of the mountains. It wasn't a whole lot steeper than the valley itself, and as tall as three men on each other's shoulders at its highest, sagging here and there as if it was about to fall down on its own. In the centre was a gate of weathered grey planks, splattered with lichen, managing to seem rotten and dried-out both at once.

To one side of the wall there was a tower, built up against the cliff. Or at least there was a great natural pillar sticking out from the rock with half-cut chunks of stone mortared to the top, making a wide platform on the cliff-side, overlooking the wall from high above. Logen looked at the Dogman as he trudged up, and the Dogman squinted at that wall as if he couldn't believe what he was seeing.

'This is it?' growled Dow, coming up next to them, his lip curling. A few trees had taken root at one side, just under the tower, must have been fifty years ago at least. Now they loomed up over the wall. A man could have climbed them easily, and stepped inside the place without even stretching far.

Tul stared up at the ragged excuse for a fortress. 'A strong place in the mountains, you said.'

'Strong… ish.' Crummock waved his hand. 'We hillmen have never been much for building and so on. What were you expecting? Ten marble towers and a hall bigger'n Skarling's?'

'I was expecting a halfway decent wall, at least,' growled Dow.

'Bah! Walls? I heard you were cold as snow and hot as piss, Black Dow, and now you want walls to hide behind?'

'We'll be outnumbered ten to one if Bethod does turn up, you mad fuck! You're damn right I want a wall, and you told us there'd be one!'

'But you said it yourself friend.' Crummock spoke soft and slow as though he was explaining it to a child, and he tapped at the side of his head with one thick finger. 'I'm mad! Mad as a sack of owls, and everyone says so! I can't remember the names of my own children. Who knows what I think a wall looks like? I hardly know what I'm talking of myself, most of the time, and you're fool enough to listen to me? You must be mad yourselves!'