The Library · RULE
Chapter 133
The Ashfall Line
also called the drovers' rule of ash
A drover's rule passed between the Ashen Wastes and the Southern Flats: once ash starts settling on your gear without a wind to carry it, the Emberwaste is close enough that the ground itself is no longer honest ground.
Drovers working both the ash camps and the dead flats swap the same rule at every fire. Wind-blown ash is just weather. Ash that settles on a still day, with no wind at all, means the Emberthrone's own breath has reached you, and the fire-mountain is closer than the horizon makes it look. Turn back or go armed for it. Nobody out here patrols past the ashfall line, and nothing that lives past it needs a road.