"No—now, what luck would come to a man that forsook his oaths?" said Tjorr. "I was weary of Pontus anyhow. Now we will surely drink of my Don again."
[XIX]
"Since gossip brought you the tale so swiftly," Eodan said, "you must also have heard the Romans will be after us at dawn tomorrow. They have money, and the Gauls here favor them; they'll hire guides, dogs and a string of remounts."
"I have hunted and been hunted on plains before now," replied Tjorr. "A flock of sheep to confuse the scent, a trackless waste as soon as we leave this road—Oh, we can race them all the way to Parthia with good hope of winning."
"But that is what we may not do, and why you had best return before the King learns of your absence. I left only on Phryne's account. I shall have to find her before undertaking such a trip, and it may consume all the time between me and the pursuit."
Tjorr cocked an eye at him knowingly. Eodan felt his wind-beaten face grow hot. He said angrily, "She is my oath-sister. Did she think I would forget what that means?"
"Da," nodded the Alan, "or she would have given herself to Mithradates with no fuss." He squinted down the rutted dirt road, which wound among boulders and sere grass until it lost itself in stormy black clouds. "Now our task is to trail her, and she would have made herself hard to trail. We can only follow this, I think, till we come on someone who's seen a boyish-looking horse archer go by ... for thus I take it she equipped herself."
"So my groom told me, and he was too frightened to make up a lie. Come, then!"
They jingled through unspeaking hours.