Wolfswood, The North, first week, third moon of 294 AC
They set out from Winterfell in a party of fifty, mounted on horses and prepared for war. His lord Father always was prepared for war these days, Robb thought, ever since Harwin and his team had returned from the Dreadford not two moons before. What the master of horses' son had been sent to do there Robb did not know, but whatever the once bold-speaking veteran guardsman and his men had seen had them scowling and tight-lipped ever since and Lord Stark mustering more than guardsmen behind the walls of Winterfell. The newly-forged mail and plate on more than half their group, the blue-grey plate on Jory Cassel as they rode towards Castle Cerwyn less than a day away in the heart of Stark lands was quite a change... as were the bowstaves strapped to most of the men's saddles.
Dangerous times were approaching; any who had eyes could see as much but the extent and swiftness of the changes had caught Robb by surprise. It felt like one day everything was as it had always been, then the next his Lord Father was taking Ice with him on every venture. Even now, the Stark ancestral sword sat diagonally against his father's back, the black steel of its cross-guard and hilt rippling oddly under the sparse sunlight beneath the trees. Then there were the men themselves. Robb was by far the youngest there at not yet twelve, with only Jon and Theon close to his age. Everyone else had seen over twenty namedays and proven their skills in the tiltyard too. No green men, no servants, no camp followers. The group rode swiftly too, as if Castle Cerwyn would not wait for their arrival, and none spoke of their mission. It gave Robb a chill that had nothing to do with the fairly mild weather of the long summer still going strong.
They reached Castle Cerwyn not six hours after their departure, the squat square of the riverside keep jutting out of the woods not a hundred yards after the sounds of the river could be heard. To Robb's surprise, Lord Stark did not head for the keep itself but for the pier beyond the keep's grounds. There, a dozen workers were packing large amounts of supplies into one of the long river barges that made the trip along the upper branches of the White Knife where the waters were too shallow for proper ships. A familiar man who Robb had seen often at harvest feasts in Winterfell met their group by the pier. Medger Cerwyn looked older than his forty namedays, and his soft-spoken manner had always seemed wise to Robb, but now he only looked grim, as grim as Robb's father.
"Lord Stark, welcome," he said, eyes carefully taking in their mounted approach. "I see you do not intend to stay the night. The barge is ready as you requested."
"Time is too short for feasts or rests," Lord Stark said. "And the wars have made Northern honor brittle. I mean to put a stop to that."
"The rumors are true then?" Lord Cerwyn asked, adding to Robb's confusion. Which rumors would those be?
"The rumors were always true, old friend," his father replied with a shake of his head. "We were just too blind to see them."
The barge proved just long and wide enough for them, their horses, far too many supplies for any short trip, and the twelve-man crew that had loaded them. Robb was caught off-guard but not truly surprised by finding Lady Keera waiting for them on the barge too. The odd woman had departed Winterfell with them but disappeared as soon as they reached the Wolfswood, her lack of horse making most of the group think she had meant to return to her people in the Neck. How she had outmarched them to the river none but his Lord Father seemed to know, which only added to the respect and mystique she had earned among the men, especially those she had trained as scouts and bowmen over the past half-year.
They moved down the west tributary of the White Knife till nightfall, the rapid flow and skilled crew allowing them to move faster than they could ever have on horses. There were three hundred and fifty miles of river between Castle Cerwyn and White Harbor and talk among the men was that Lord Stark meant to cross them in less than a week. Robb, Jon and Theon spent most of the day's trip on the barge's prow with little to do than watch and listen. It occurred to them that they knew little about barges or ships, even Theon who was from the Iron Islands. The realization put the older boy in a bad mood and while Jon did not seem to care as much, Robb was struck by the importance of watercraft to any lord and not just for trade.
They moored in a creek as the sun was dipping below the horizon; swift currents and rocky shoots made the White Knife too dangerous to sail in the dark so far upriver. While most of the men busied themselves with setting up camp, Lord Stark sent for Robb, Jon and Theon as soon as the luxurious red and black tent he had brought along was set up. Lady Keera and Jory Cassel were there, too, all three sitting around a small table with a map of the North upon it. The Crannogwoman had scrolls of smaller, more detailed local maps open too and unless Robb missed his guess they were of the Lonely Hills and Weeping Water. Odd.
"Robb, Jon, Theon," Eddard Stark welcomed them in a serious but fond tone. "It is time you learned why we are moving south with such haste."
"Did something happen at White Harbor, father?" Jon asked before Robb could speak up himself. The past half year and the changes in his treatment had greatly improved his brother's confidence but, more importantly in Robb's opinion, had finally let him find some happiness. Now it was Robb that often found himself slower to speak than Jon or Theon and to his surprise he found that thinking things through before talking was a good idea.
"A good guess, but no," Lord Stark said. "Lord Manderly did request our presence as a tour of his new glassworks was due but that was not the true purpose of our trip, nor the reason for our haste."
"Does it have to do with the Boltons?" Robb tried after the idea struck him out of the blue. He could not explain how he had come to that conclusion, not even to himself, but it felt right. Like a blacksmith's puzzle, several details of the trip fit together just right to show the shape that had been hidden, a shape Robb's instincts seized like a direwolf did a bloody bone.
"Yes," his father said, eyes glowing with approval. "The Bo-" Eddard Stark suddenly stopped speaking when Lady Keera took a combat stance, daggers at the ready. It took a long, awkward moment for Robb to notice why; there was a faint metal ringing in the air, like a sword had just about been drawn from its sheath. None had yet the faint ringing was there... and it was coming from Ice, his father's sword.
Then the air between Lady Keera and Jory Cassel shifted oddly, like steam coming off a cooking pot, and the tallest and prettiest woman Robb had ever seen was standing there. A head taller than Lady Keera, with alabaster skin, hair like spun silver falling down in wavy tresses to the small of her back, almond-shaped eyes that glowed like coals yet had the color of perfect amethysts, radiating the kind of powerful yet refined presence that filled the tent and that even Robb's lord Father and lady Mother only showed in grand gatherings of northern lords.
Her sudden appearance out of thin air made Sir Cassel jump back, Lord Stark rise to his feet, Jon and Theon to gape and even Lady Keera almost drop her knives as her dark eyes went as wide as dinner plates. Given how calm and controlled all three of them often were, Robb was even more worried at the unknown woman's sudden arrival. Then...
"Finally!" the unexpected guest exclaimed in an exasperated tone Robb would have expected out of his six-year-old sister than a woman grown. Oh, the voice was clear like crystal and refined like any lady's but the emotion behind it? "I have been trying to contact you for months. Do you not ever leave Winterfell?" That did sound like Arya, all right. Suddenly the evening promised to be even more interesting than Robb had expected.
xxxx
Oh, that stupid, stupid girl. If Keera did not stongly suspect she was not present in the tent at all, she'd wring her neck just to see if that would make her grow some wits. She doubted it though. If even a close encounter with a lizard-lion at twelve failed to be of help in such a way, what hope had any act she was willing to carry through? So despite a lifetime of practice to the contrary, Keera once again had to be the voice of reason. Things had been so much simpler during the Rebellion...
"Flann, take care of how you speak!" she snapped when everybody else proved unwilling or too shocked to open the conversation. "You are in the presence of Lord Stark, Warden of the North!"
"I know," her idiot apprentice said with some confusion. "I came here to talk to him, did I not?" She scowled. "Ugh, all this would not have been necessary if that bastard wasn't spying on most communications."
"Stop!" Lord Stark ordered, palm raised. She did, and thank the Old Gods Flann did as well. "You believe someone is spying on our communications? Who and how?"
"I don't believe so, Lord Stark, I know so," her apprentice said with a roll of her eyes in the way of young girls everywhere. Keera's desire to wring the girl's neck returned with a vengeance. "Brynden Rivers is a powerful Greenseer who can control almost any bird on Westeros and unlike me he has had enough time and training to get through the ancient protections Winterfell has against magic. I have seen him do so."
"Bloodraven disappeared from the Night's Watch over forty years ago," Lord Stark said. "You claim he is still alive? At a hundred and twenty years old?"
"He seemed alive enough when I dueled him for the mind and soul of Lord Reed's son last year," Flann said drily, once again proving she had no idea how to talk to powerful lords. "As for his age, I have seen sorceresses three centuries old that did not look a day over thirty. Magic and alchemy prolonging life is the least of what they can do."
"I see..." the Warden of the North mused. "With such a foe you could not risk a messenger so... you came yourself?"
"No, I am still in Lys." Her form shimmered like a Dornish heat-mirage, becoming as see-through as a pane of glass before returning to apparent solidity. "This is an illusion, a sending through which I can see and hear so we can converse face-to-face... so to speak."
"...how long did this magic take to perform?" Lord Stark demanded. "What of its cost?"
"All it took was a bit of time to find your location. Half an hour maybe, to follow the major roads from Winterfell? Your group was not exactly hiding." She shrugged again, showing casual indefference to propriety. "As for costs, minor spells don't need sacrifices when you are powerful enough. For major spells... Essos is lousy with slavers. Since they would die anyway..."
That was it! Keera was going to kill that idiot, see if that gave her the common sense the Gods gave a five-year-old...