ALTERNATE PLANS

Zeruta was still in the midst of the forest, she was crying because of the death of her father and the entire clan, she was now the last and only survivor of the Zaandi Clan. She really wished her mother would come speak to her again, suddenly, a thought came to her, she decided to sleep hoping that her mom would come to her again like she did the last time, after sleeping for close to 7 hours, she woke up frustrated because, instead of seeing her mother, all she saw was darkness. She started feeling hungry and decided to get something to eat and also to work on a new bow and arrow. She promised herself that she was going to take revenge on the Zumba, Salmi and Mazil Clans.While strolling through the forest, she came across a part of the forest where she saw some apples. Out of hunger, she immediately plucked some and started eating.After eating some apples, she finally regained her strength. Many weeks later, while she was moving through the forest, she came across some group of people living in the forest. They were so many in number, when they saw her, they captured her and tied up her hands and legs. They started asking her questions because they suspected that she was a spy. She narrated everything that had happened to her and how she had lost her people, she then told them that she was able to escape but didn't give them the full detail. The people believed her, not because they trusted her but because what happened to her also happened to them. They then untied her and introduced themselves to her."We are from the Southern part of Amigo", they said, "We were chased away from our lands by the Emins in the North"(Then, the Ancient Country of Amigo was divided into four main territories; The North was where the Emins occupied, The East was occupied by the Ferads, The West, by the Lamias and South by the Redas. Under the East and the South, there existed so many clans and each clan had its own Chief, but the North and the West didn't have such clans. They were ruled by Kings.)"The Emins plan on occupying the entire Amigo and they planned on destroying the Southern part first. Unfortunately, they decided to start with our clan. Before help from neighboring clans could come, we had already been overpowered and we couldn't hold our land, so many of our brothers and sisters died and only the few of us remain, they gave their lives so that we could escape, we were able to pack some foodstuffs and other things, we were hoping to come to the east and join forces to fight against the North, but it seems from your story that the East is not really as united as other territories."

Zeruta was embarrassed due to the fact that her story had given the East a bad image but that was actually the truth, the East were not really united compared to other territories. The Redas (People from the South) decided to change route to go to the West which was the strongest territory in the Amigo. They reasoned that it would be hard for the Emins (the Northerners) to conquer the West. They invited Zeruta to join them and she agreed, not because she wanted to, but because she had no other choice.On their way to the West, they learnt more about the two different territories, Zeruta told them about the East while they told Zeruta about the South. Since they were going on foot, it took them about one month before they left the boundaries of the East and they lost the covering and protection coming from the forest. They had to be very alert since the Emins could attack at any moment.Before they left the forest, Zeruta had equipped herself with enough arrows as she was well informed that they were now involved in a battle of life and death, she however hid her skills away from the Redas (People of the South) since she didn't really trust them yet. She trained in secret and everything she did was unknown to the Redas.After leaving the forest of the East, the guards had to stand guard while others slept; the guards took turns to watch. Two days later, a shout was heard, everyone quickly woke up, it was the Emins, they had discovered them. The Redas alongside Zeruta started running away, while the guards tried defending them. Within minutes, four of the Redas guards had been killed. The Emins were more adapted to war than the other territories except the West, thus, it was no wonder that four guards were already down. Zeruta knew that if it continued like this, they would all be dead; She needed to help, immediately, like a black bird in the night, it flew and struck an Emins warrior. "aaaaaah", the warrior shouted, he fell down, he was dead. It was Zeruta's arrow. The Emins didn't see the source of the arrow but they knew that this wasn't any normal arrow. They tried running away but before the blink of an eye, two more Emins warriors had fallen dead. Zeruta tried her best to prevent the sight of the Emins warriors but she also knew that if any escaped, the Emins would come looking for her, with this thought in mind, she quickly fired and within five minutes, the twenty five Emins warriors had fallen dead. The Redas that were with her were all surprised. They were happy they didn't harm her when they first met her, if not, they would have all been dead.None of the Redas knew Zeruta's name; not because they didn't ask but because she wanted to be like her dad whose name was unknown till his death.Since the people didn't know her name, they addressed her as 'the Girl from the East'. At first, the people didn't really pay much attention to Zeruta but now, after seeing what she was capable of, they decided to study her more closely.They continued their journey to the West, but before that, the leader of the refugees had already warned them not to talk about Zeruta so as to avoid problems from the Emins. The people understood and didn't talk about her, however, humans are really difficult to control so, some group of people paid deaf ears to the warning of the leader. After about one month and three weeks, they got to their destination. They weren't the only ones rushing to the West, there were other Southern refugees heading to the West. The People of the West (Lamias) were very security conscious so the refugees were interrogated properly before given permission into the land so as to avoid Emins spies from coming in. The Land of the Lamias was built like a fortress thus, it was a place the Emins would not dare joke with. They needed to plan properly before carrying out any attack on the City of Lamias.