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The Ring Road

The oldest working road on Aerun, and the reason it's one continent instead of seven.

The great highway around the whole continent, touching every city and most of the towns: fourteen hundred miles of graded roadbed, wells, and waystops.

At a glance

• Length: about 1,400 miles all the way round. A caravan making twenty to twenty-five miles a day circles the continent in about two months.
• Between cities: on the eastern side, neighbors sit 100 to 150 miles apart, four to seven days' travel. The western legs are much longer.
• The traffic: Guild mekillot argosies, rolling fortress land-trains the size of villages, plus house caravans, pilgrims, couriers, herds, and everyone on foot.
• Upkeep: shared, grudgingly, by the families who profit from it. Wells and waystops are kept up by whichever house's territory they're in, so quality varies a lot from one stretch to the next.

Who's aboard an argosy

Three crews, all Guild:

• The crew, who handle the cargo and the hauling lines.
• The drovers, at the helm and the brakes, driving the mekillot teams. It's a trade you learn on the road.
• The Navigators, hooded, from the Academy, who ride up front, command the train, and keep the beasts calm.

The circuit

Draj, Blackguard, Raam, Nibenay, Gulg, Amber Valley, Balic, Urik, Hollowstorm, Osgaker, Tyr, and back to Draj.

Eldorado sits on a short spur up toward the high country. Gulg is reached by a forest track off the main road, because the road doesn't go into the wood.

Good to know

• Travel with a caravan. Walking alone is fine on the settled stretches and not recommended anywhere else. Join a caravan at any city gate, or at Amber Valley, where hiring happens in the open every dawn.
• The road is neutral ground. By old custom, nobody settles feuds on it. That holds well in the west, so-so in the north, and not at all near the Mekillot Mountains.
• Road trivia. Every great argosy is said to carry a sealed hold that the crews don't open and won't talk about. It's the road's favorite legend. An argosy is never late, as the drovers like to say.
• Two shortcuts, both across the silt: the Long Reach from Balic to Raam, and the shoal routes the desert tribes use and won't sell.