Ernest slowly slid down from the tree, keeping a careful eye on the leader of the group. She wasn't sure she trusted him, but if he wasn't lying - and how could he be? - there was no point in remaining in hiding. She didn't exactly have many other options, anyway.
"If you're not planning to capture me, then what are you doing? I'd rather not be speared just for an ironic play on words." She scanned the area, and the five men nearby, noticing with some frustration that one of them had her dagger. She would be getting that back soon if she had any say in it. 
She stood, back to the forest, waiting for a response. The bushes in the distance rustled, and she could hear shouts - whether natives or barbarians, she had no idea. 
"And, whatever you're doing, you might want to hurry," she added. "I think I hear the natives." Not that she would overly mind something happening to the barbarians, she simply thought she had a larger chance of survival dealing with them. And, she supposed, she ought to tell them if she heard something. Information, when giving it wouldn't hurt you, should not be treated as a commodity. 
She turned, facing the leader. She didn't trust him, and she certainly didn't like him, but right now, she knew her life depended on him not wanting to kill her, so she hoped that wasn't his purpose. 

Silanus didn't answer the girl's first question, for there was no answer. Leaving her on her own was profitless, however killing her without a reason seemed to be plainly stupid. Capturing her would be a terrible idea, since she's be a burden. If they helped her, perhaps she could help, or maybe Silanus wanted to compensate for his cruel acts. 

The shouts, at first they seemed to be from the natives, however later did the Fratians realise they were from their own people. The soldiers were still alive, and they were fighting. "We must go, help the survivors!" said Tacitus, focused to help his people. But one trooper held his arm, stopping him and answered: "If we go, we die, Silanus." 

Silanus looked at the soldier carefully, what he said was sadly true, but he didn't want to admit it. The general looked back, frustrated and outraged, he said: "we'll return, then! Come back to this treacherous land with an army of a hundred troopers! Let's go to our lands!" The soldiers nodded and Silanus looked down with fury in his eyes.

 Now that he was calmer, the general spoke to the girl: "It seems that our cruel acts of slavery were punished by our fate, giving us this… This treason, the deaths of our companions. This happened because we lusted for riches, I beg your forgiveness, for almost ending your life, you cursed girl! You are free to go in your own, or follow us, do as you want." Not all the soldiers agreed on this, but what they could agree now is that their selfish acts of slavery were poorly rewarded and that perhaps the Divines themselves did not favor this act. "Let's continue, shall we?" commanded Silanus.

Ernest simply stared. He was letting her go? Why? She didn't pose her questions, though. He didn't seem to be in the habit of answering them. She shrugged. Not that it mattered. 
Now the real question. Should she follow them? They had tried to sell her into slavery. But still, they didn't seem all bad. The general was letting her go. And she was lost. Not that she had anywhere to go, but she was pretty certain that to stay in the jungle meant death. She had never even planned to be here in the first place. It had all been a huge mistake.
She glanced over the men. She was certain she didn't want to travel with them for a long period of time. But they did know their way around. And that man still had her dagger.
She was absolutely sure of two things. Firstly, she did not want to travel with these men. And secondly, they were her only way out of the jungle. 
That left her with only one solution. She would follow them. She out of their sight, but they not out of hers. 
"I believe I can make my own way back to civilization," she said. "Thank you, gentlemen." She decided a bow would be out of character, so she left it there. Turning on her heel, she slid off into the woods. 
Soon, the troopers were leaving, content to dream, she supposed, of returning to kill the natives. But this time, they had a shadow. Silently, she followed them. She was sure they would not find her. She was excellent at hiding, when she chose to be.

Now that it seemed that the girl chose to go on her own, the Fratians walked forwards. Around 10 minutes passed and, through all the woods and plants, they found a small water stream, deep enough to cover the half of a human body at least.

The soldiers looked at each other, then at the stream. One of them asked: "So, what you say, lads? Shall we rest our bodies in the water?" The general answered, as he removed his sandals: "I'd say we go for it, to regain our strengths and wills to keep walking. Let's try to not stay here too much, though." Happy and eager to bath themselves, the soldiers began to remove their heavy armours.

Some of them maintained their short red tunic, others simply kept their wool underwear, which was interesting, due to it's antique, notorious look. In fact, all their clothes were ancient styled, none of them had pants for example, since their skirt-like tunic covered all their body, reaching to their knees.

An hour passed and the men were still bathing, talking about how bad it felt to lose almost all their unit and how clumsy they were, getting betrayed like that. However, now that their energies were regained, the men put their clothes and armour on again and processed to march, with some odd feelings that they were being observed by somebody. The Fratians were almost out of the forest!

Ernest, watching the men, was certain they were almost wherever the men were going. They seemed more cheerful. They talked about how wonderful it would be to be home. Ernest was glad as well. She would finally be out of this infernal forest, and back to civilization. She began to glance ahead for their destination, and that was her undoing.
As she jumped toward one particular branch, she was not watching too closely. She missed the nest. Her foot landed directly on top of a giant bees' nest and sent it tumbling several feet through the canopy. She cursed. The bees were coming for her, and she had heard tales of the insects in the rainforest, and all of them were considerably more dangerous than they appeared.
She had two choices. There was water below her, not too far, but far enough that the men were sure to notice her. She could jump, or she could take her chances with the bees. She considered. Bees, she was pretty sure she could handle. Soldiers, she wasn't so sure. She had almost made up her mind when the first bees reached her. The legends had not been wrong. The sting felt as if it was on fire, and she knew that the soldiers were by far the lesser of two evils. A small part of her hoped the soldiers wouldn't see her, but she doubted it. They had good eyes, and it was hard to miss a splash of that magnitude.
Gritting her teeth, she leapt toward the water, cloud of bees in hot pursuit.

A person, chased by a trail of bees fell on the water. It was not only easy to see, but her fall caused too much noise, something that they hoped nobody else besides them could listen. Now, the big question was… Who was this person? Oh, of course, who else could it be? That girl they captured, then released some while ago; what a coincidence, or not.

Suddenly, they all moved through the water towards her, curious to know why in the world she fell from a tree. One soldier said to his companions: "So, this is the kid we released before, uh?" Silanus, with a small frown in his face, answered to him: "It seems so. Oh, and she is being attacked by… Bees?" The soldiers didn´t help her. They thought about it, but… How would they scare those bees? Splashing water at them? If they did, it was very possible they´d be attacked by the insects as well.

Tacitus Silanus pointed one of his hands at the bees; he sighted deeply as his hand began to glow. The general, who was an adept spellsword as well, casted a purple cloud that affected the bees. Suddenly, it was as if the bees saw their natural predators; of course, it was the miasma spell he was casting at them, something that would cause them to see an illusion of their fears. Thankfully, the cloud of bees fled, now leaving the girl alone with the soldiers.

The soldiers were not very happy to see her, was she following them? Now that the bees were gone, they got closer to the girl. How funny it was, her face all stung by those insects. One of the troopers asked to her: "So… Is there a particular reason you fell from a tree? In a tree that is, curiously, very close to our stream?" Silanus, obviously curious about her actions, said: "Be thankful the bees are gone. I am Tacitus Silanus, commander of the Fratians. These are my fellow, loyal  companions. As you may know, things didn´t go pretty good for us. Same as you, we got attacked. Anyways, who in the cursed lands are you?"

Ernest knew she was doomed. The soldiers were not pleased to see her - and why should they be? She was, after all, following them.
"In response to your first question," she said, for the moment ignoring Silanus, "I did not fall out of a tree. I jumped out of a tree. And that was because the bees were attacking me. How else could I have avoided them?" She avoided the question of why the tree she had jumped out of was so close to their stream. The less she had to talk about that, the better. 
"As for 'who in these cursed lands am I?'" she said, "you probably have never heard of me, but my name is Ernest. I'm really no one of consequence." That was, unless you belonged to one of three little tiny towns closer to the coast. The people in those towns currently wanted to hang her for stealing. She hoped the men hadn't seen the signs posted on those towns' message boards. She smiled. "If you don't mind, I'll just go now." She edged away from the men, and as she passed the pile of their things, which they had put down, for a break, she assumed, she snatched up her dagger and slid it under her sleeve. She didn't care about most of the other things she'd had. Everyone she talked to said they were cursed, anyway.

"Ernest" now that was a name they had never heard of until now. For some reason, this girl seemed to be somehow "shady" as she did everything possible to avoid conversation. Well, why shouldn't she? They had previously captured her and almost enslaved her. But, at the end, they did the right thing and released her, didn't they?

None of the Fratians saw how she quickly stole, well, retrieved her dagger from their pile of equipment. Ernest seemed to be pretty skilled in the art of stealing; one soldier stood up, and with a mocking voice, said to the girl: "Aren't you going to stay, and speak more with the men who saved you from the tribesmen and then released you? How rude! Ha-ha!" after that, all the soldiers chuckled. 

Silanus stood up and then spoke, too. "Where are you going, anyways? We're in the middle of this forest, the only man with a map got killed, and nobody here knows were we are. That road over there? Oh, it's an ancient road, built probably hundreds of years ago. It leads to some ruins, not to the exit of this internal place!" what he said was true. At first, after seeing a road, the troopers had a light of hope. But, it was all a false hope. Until now did the Fratians realise they were lost as well.

Ernest's face fell when she realized the tribesmen were as lost as she was. Her only hope of getting out of this forest had been following them. She had a map, of course, but it didn't show this area - this was not where she was trying to be - and she couldn't read it anyway. But right now, she realized, she had to make up an answer that would satisfy them. She did not want them to know that she had been following them.
"I'm not really going anywhere," she said. This was partly true. She didn't really have anywhere to go, but "out of this forest" had been high on her priority list. "Is there somewhere I should be going?" 
She edged back a little further. If the troopers had no idea where they were going, there was little point in following them. Now that she'd gotten her dagger back, she hoped she could survive on her own. She had her map. That, she had kept hidden under her shirt. Not that it was any use to her anyway, but she was going to keep it.
She looked one more time at the pile of equipment, wondering if she should try to grab the bronzed locket hidden in her bag. After a moment, she realized it wasn't worth it. No point in getting all the troopers angry over something no one wanted to buy. Part of her hoped that the natives would get ahold of it, and the stupid curse everyone told her about would fall on them.

This girl was surely not acting natural, but… Who cared about that? For now, the only thing Silanus knew about her was… Nothing; she was a nobody, a commoner, a random peasant, probably even a homeless nomad. Nobody to care about.

What they said was true, however one of the troopers had a compass, something that was leading the men south. The main road was located in there, so even if they had no idea where they were, finding the main road would mean finding the way out.

"Don't trust any strangers in your way out, Er-nest, or they might want to capture you, ha-ha!" said one of the soldiers, while the other ones bursted in laughter. Silanus stood up and put on his red tunic on his wet body, he didn't care. They should be marching soon, so he was simply preparing himself. It mattered not were the girl was going, really.