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This fan-fiction article, Catelluvion Gap, was written by Ahalosniper. Please do not edit this fiction without the writer's permission. |
The Catelluvion Gap, known also as the High Pass, is a mountain pass through the Kestrel Mountains between Redania and Kaedwen. Though its natural courses are wide and open, the Gap is perhaps the highest road through the Kestrels and remains covered in snow year-round, making it scarcely used. As neither neighboring country wishes to spend coin making it secure, the pass is infrequently patrolled aside from watchtowers near its eastern and western ends, making it an ideal byroad for Havekars, Scoia'tael, and other outlaws. With so little attention from the sentient races of the Continent, its valleys and forests have also become ideal territory for various monsters to retreat to.
Despite these dangers, the High Pass remains one of the shortest routes through the Kestrels, making it a continuously tempting route for the foolish or desperate to take. Mercenaries and even witchers can sometimes find work escorting travelers across, though the number who go missing each year would make one suspect some take advantage of how easily those who enter it may never be seen again.
Geography[]
Treise Valley[]
The western end of the High Pass begins with the Treise Valley, named for the river which carved it. The Treise, meaning "strong" in Elder Speech, is a tributary river of the Buina, and swells its banks each spring when the mountain snow begins to melt. The pine forests of the mountain foothills give way to meadows and seasonal marshlands, which contribute to strikingly vibrant scenery in any season.
Stretching some thirty kilometers east to west, and a dozen north and south, the land is home to several Redanian villages and towns, giving rise to the barony of Dambors to oversee the region. The ease with which logs can be floated down the river makes lumber a considerable source of wealth for Dambors, but the region has always been famous for breeding and training some of Redania's finest warhorses in the valley's open fields and steep hills. In 1271, the baroness of Dambors earned great fame outfitting the widows, wives, and daughters of Redanian soldiers with riding gear and lending cavalry reinforcements to King Radovid during the Third Northern War.
At its eastern end, the pine forests thicken as elevation rises, and only a handful of roads extend to any length beyond the treelines. Aside from a handful of logging camps, the furthest touch of civilization is the Redanian garrison at Watch Tower Three. From this posting, a scant few troops of the Redanian Army watch the pass for signs of trouble and give stable to riders for sending word of any disturbance. As few travel the pass, however, the tower is a dull backwater assignment for officers with little chance of promotion.
Catelluvion Gap[]
The pass' summit.
Dagolet's Folly[]
Leading down the mountain slopes east of the Gap itself, the region known as Dagolet's Folly was given its name in a long-ago war between Redania and Kaedwen. With the lower passes heavily-fortified, King Dagolet of Kaedwen thought to strike at Ghelibol by coming over the undefended High Pass, and ordered his army to cross in early winter—dragging dozens of siege engines with them. With catapults and siege towers to drag up steep slopes, the army made agonizingly slow progress and was caught in the thick of winter before they had even reached the Gap. While ascending the final uphill stretches, the army was set upon by an unknown force; some suspect Redanian special forces, while others suggest non-humans familiar with the pass may have been employed, and peasants are known to circulate more superstitious rumors. Whatever the truth, the result was no man of Dagolet's army returned from the pass alive.
While the soldiers' bodies have long since disappeared, the siege weapons they dragged with them remain, preserved by frost in the mountains' shade. The tilting siege towers and derelict catapults sit clustered on either side of the road for nearly a quarter-mile, the only headstones marking the graves an army which set foot in the pass and vanished altogether.