Shadowcats and Direwolves.
There were thousands of Northmen at the Twins, when Walder Frey made his move. There were a dozen people who had heard of Robb's plans to name Jon his heir. There was one signed document pertaining to the latter amidst hundreds of tents and people. And, doubtless, there were guards at Robb's tent; and who's to say one of them didn't put two and two together?
It had been a normal night of guard duty, until the first barrel of burning pitch was fired into the camp.
Four men had been guarding the Young Wolf's tent that night, one on each corner. Two, Glover men, had left to fetch the next shift not three minutes ago. At the first sign of danger, the other, an Umber, narrowed his eyes, drew his sword (which looked suspiciously like it had gone through at least three battles without cleaning or sharpening), and, despite Kennet's belated call, charged towards the Twins.
That left the Karstark man alone to question what exactly was going on. He knew little but the fact that the castle the King in the North had entered recently was firing on them, so, somehow, they had made enemies of Walder Frey.
Normally Kennet would laugh at the prospect of the fat man being a valid threat, but the burning tents not a hundred metres from him and the horsemen silhouetted behind them were all too close for that.
The army caught off guard, drinking - as most of the soldiers who hadn't drawn Guard duty would be, - left Kennet little room for delusion; this would be a massacre and a rout. And without the King, who was inside the Twins -
Which had turned against them.
King Robb, King in the North, King at the Trident, the Young Wolf, Lord Stark, Victor of a dozen battles (so it was told), was resoundingly and doubtlessly dead.
So there Kennet stood, stock still, guarding the possessions of a dead man. In the tent would be maps, plans, letters, correspondences; items maybe invaluable to the North and its' bannermen, who were like as not dying in droves.
He ripped the fabric door, tied shut, carelessly apart; who would search an already-searched tent? It would buy him time.
The tent was modest, but Kennet had heard as much previously. The main point of interest was the desk. He was fortunate that his father, in Karhold, had taught him the letters he'd learned himself at a young age and never forgotten; but Karhold was never further from his mind.
He grabbed as much as he could, already feeling a rush of heat he imagined to be akin to Dorne as the fire spread and was spread by the trebuchets. Letters, little notes, a bag to put them in, a parchment that had a shitload of signatures he wasn't bothered enough to decipher as well as a few seals, and finally, from under the bed and the pillow respectively, a short sword and a dagger.
Then he ran. The fire was almost all around, all but a quarter of his surroundings. He ran for the gap, praying to the gods for safety as he passed a man on the floor; drunk or dead, he didn't have the time to check.
He passed the flames, and only stopped another hundred feet past, at the edge of the camp of hastily erected tents that had sprawled outwards from the almost encircled feast-tents-turned-massacre-scenes.
He had a bag full of documents of undetermined value, a short sword, (the King's,) a dagger, (likewise,) his own longsword, spear, and knife, the clothes on his back and not much else.
He wore his spear strapped to his back, his sword on his right hip, as he was left-handed, the short-sword on his right, his knife was strapped to his left calf, something to come up with if he lost a weapon and rolled in evasion, and the dagger he had yet to find a place for; for now it was adorning his belt.
To get anywhere he'd need supplies, but the cooks' tents were last in the column; that meant they would have been close to the feast tents, and that area was nearly an inferno as well.
Kennet wouldn't shirk from filching from men likely dead, as he'd proven already; there were a few supplies of varying kinds in the tents next to him, as it turned out; at least there had been. The Kingsroad was not far; he would head North. Karhold was not such a distance away as it might be, he could get a ship from White Harbour, and he knew villages on the way where more supplies could be purchased. On the way, he could read the letters and choose his next course of action.
He turned his back on the fire and blood behind him, took his spear off his back and held it horizontal - so as not to be seen from afar - and set off. The night was dark, and with a moon; a good night for walking, for hiding, and for escaping with his life.
Kennet might not necessarily be a man of honor, but he was a man of prudence, who recognised a lost cause when he saw one. The fight for the North was not lost. The fight for the King in the North was.
The remainder of the night and most of the next day of travelling, hiding, and sleeping later, Kennet turned off the path at the side of a stream to fill his bottles, and in the fading light of day, settled down to read the letters and documents.
There were letters in the manner which great Lords would send, of alliances and treaties, of a potential peace with the Lannisters in exchange for extortionate hostage releases and conceeded territories that Kennet wasn't surprised had been rejected. There were messages, well worn-out from the movements of hands, detailing troop movements, scout reports, battle plans, and so on. And there was a single Royal Decree.
It was a parchment affixed with the seals of the great houses of the North and those sworn to Robb Stark, as well as the signings of each particular Lord. Most prominent was the Direwolf of Stark, at the top of the page.
It read thus;
In the name of Robb Stark, Lord of Winterfell, King in the North and King of the Trident, trueborn son of Eddard Stark, and with the full recognition and support of the Lords and houses whose seals are affixed, the man known as Jon Snow, natural-born son of Eddard Stark, is hereby legitimised and named the heir of the King in the North and the King of the Trident.
Should Robb Stark, the King in the North and the King of the Trident, fall, in battle or sickness, in the absence of any male son by Queen Jeyne Westerling, Jon Stark, formerly Jon Snow, will be recognised and acknowledged by the Lords stated as their King.
Any vows he has sworn to the contrary, whether to the Night's Watch or any other party, are hereby revoked by this Royal Decree.
The mentioned party, Jon Stark, is hereby summoned to the side of the King in the North and the King of the Trident, Robb Stark.
All parties sworn to the King in the North and the King of the Trident are to see that this decree is enforced, by any and all means necessary, preferably supplying the Night's Watch with men and food supplies as compensation for the summoning of Jon Stark from their most esteemed and recognised ranks.
From that point, the list of names of Lords and knights was compressed into a rather small section of the page, at the bottom, but Kennet could make out the names and titles of all the Lords who had travelled in their company from Riverrun, the names of Bolton and Karstark being glaringly absent.
The North could rally again, it seemed, not as strong as it had been before the Twins had played their hand and broke guest right, but strong enough to gain an independence at least. But likely all the Lords that had signed the parchment were dead, and their heirs maybe too, and their castellans and families might not hold the same opinion. They would be hard to sway to the cause, certainly; a show of strength and revenge against both the Boltons and the Ironborn would do it.
The question of how immediately sprang to Kennet's mind. Certainly he could not help the cause from outside of the North. If he could return there, however... Not all of the North had unified their troops to head south at Robb Stark's call. They had set off once the Umbers and the Karstarks had arrived, but the loyal mountain clans had not the time to unify and pool their strength, and their force of likely two to four thousand had been left.
However, there would be no ravens to small villages such as those of the clans. And they were amongst the northernmost Northerners, too, reportedly only the Mormonts and Umbers being close to that distance.
The Mormonts were a potential answer, yes, but only if a raven could be sent, and Kennet didn't happen to have one of those on him.
The Manderlys would have ravens, as would any other lord with a castle, admittedly, but White Harbour was close, and Kennet had travelled there before, with and without his father, on trading missions. He had contacts who could gain him an audience with Wyman Manderly, and he could plan more on the way.
But the problem remained of how to get there. Nothing he could use, to the best of Kennet's knowledge, would allow him past Moat Cailin; the only path to the North by foot. The Ironborn would never allow a Northman through.
Kennet sighed as he unfurled one last parchment, not the last of those he'd taken, but likely the last he could read before sunset, given it's size.
His eyes scanned the large map of Westeros, which ranged from the Wall to King's Landing, and various inscriptions and sketching caught his eye.
One arrow led down the Kingsroad past the Twins to the Green Fork, an arrow labelled "Bolton." An arrow had diverged from it at the Twins, leading to Riverrun through the Whispering Wood. It was labelled "Stark." Many more circled around the Westerlands, at locations Kennet recognised - and where he'd fought.
It was the Young Wolf's battle plans.
But one location had been circled that Kennet had never paid attention to, and had arrows leading to and from it. The arrow leading North of the Twins had a small branch off it to Seaguard, from Seaguard up the coast, and from the coast into the marshes. It was labelled "Stark Banners," and it led to Greywater Watch. From Greywater Watch, an arrow curled to meet the main arrow, and at that point, another section, labelled "Stark," curled out to flank Moat Cailin, while the main arrow headed up the causeway.
The Reeds of Greywater Watch had been allies of the North for centuries. They would not turn down a chance to save it, and they were his chance to get through.
Kennet rolled and tied the map once again, as the sun set slowly. He set off towards a copse, ready to roll out his blankets and bed down for the night in preparation for the journey North the next day. It was a long time since he'd been home, but he feared it would take him a bit longer yet.