Migrants on the silver highway, three abreast we ride into dawn’s dull blade and see as one the rising bastion that waits with silent rage, steadfast in the maelstrom. The ridge, the very rim of our dominion, fire-born, ice-riven, steaming shrapnel of a billion winters, swallowed, spewed, grey on grey on slate and shadow, mist and granite procreate. Time has folded, fossilized, charred earth bruised the fallen sky, the brutal edge, the edge of wilderness. Stratus crawling, clawing, dredging, sweating fume between the storms. Heaven weeps, torn belly dragged over spurred black backbone, the bracken-maned Cerberus sprawling, dividing the mighty from the mire, all scars and no mascara, scarce seams of light given, stolen, the barbed ledge stretching west and on and on.

And then the Tor.