The bandits came late at night after my father and I had been sitting and talking for hours and everyone else was fast asleep. There were seven of them; six were on horses, the seventh, who appeared to be the leader, was riding the teewah. My father got up off the ground, drew his sword from its scabbard and got ready to fight. The bandit dismounted from the teewah and walked toward us without drawing a weapon and unwrapped the cloth that covering their face. To our shock, it was a woman.

"You're not a military convoy," she said to my father.

"We're exiles, the queen has exiled us to the Northlands," my father responded, lowering his guard.

"The queen? What's happened to the king?" She asked.

"The king is ailing, the queen has usurped the throne."

"The queen is illegitimate then?"

"She is."

The bandit thought about this for a moment before she turned around and walked back to her teewah.

"You're not going to rob us?" My father asked, confused.

"You're exiles, which means you're like us, so no, we won't be robbing you, and besides, the information that you've given me is far more valuable than anything we could steal from you."

"Is that your daughter?" She added, looking at me.

"Yes," my father answered.

"Raise her to be strong, she's going to need to be out here."

"I intend to."

She remounted her teewah and led the other bandits away, bringing an end to the most frightening experience of my life. The teewah was much larger than it had looked from afar, it was almost twice the size of a horse, and she was more physically imposing than any woman I had ever seen. The greatest danger that was facing us had passed, leaving me and my father to contemplate the encounter that we had just had.

If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

"What did she mean when she said that you'd given her valuable information?"

"With an illegitimate queen on the throne the kingdom is going to enter into a period of decline which the bandits will be able to exploit."

"Are we safe now?"

"That's what she said, hopefully we can take her at her word."

It turned out we could take her at her word. We completed the rest of our journey to the Bronden mountain range without encountering any more bandits. The Bronden mountains served as the unofficial border between the kingdom and the Northlands. The easiest way to travel through the mountains into the Northlands was through a narrow valley that the Okwari kept scouted. My father told the rest of the caravan to wait at the entrance to the valley while he went through it alone and made sure that it was safe for the rest of us. The rest of us looked up at the mountains and couldn't see any scouts but my father assured us that they were there. He rode slowly into the valley on his horse until he became enshrouded by the darkness of the valley and we could no longer see him. He was gone for long, so long that I began to have fears about him not returning. When he did finally return he brought word with him that the valley was safe to cross, and that in the coming days the Okwari chief would be coming to the military outpost to discuss our situation as well as the developments in the kingdom.

Not far from the entrance to the Northlands was a military outpost where we would be staying until we were able to erect our own shelters. After passing through the valley it took us just over an hour to reach the outpost. The outpost was a large stone building with a thatch roof that was large enough to easily accommodate all thirty of us. The challenge was going to be how we lived out here. We had depleted most of our provisions during the trip and needed to start thinking immediately about how we were going to feed ourselves. We'd start worrying about that tomorrow, my father said to me; for now everybody just needed to rest. We weren't going to rest. Soon after arriving at the outpost my father told me to get on one of the horses and follow him. We rode away from the outpost and deeper into the Northlands until we reached a point where the ground dropped off. From the plateau we were on the vastness of the Northlands stretched out before us for as far as we could see. There were more mountains in the distance but other than that the land was flat, barren and desolate. It was a wonder that anybody was able to live here at all.