Brasidas approached with a bemused look, while Tychon incessently glanced over his large shoulder, seemingly alert for something that wasn't quite there. 

The Protos Kapetanos had seen to the erecting of their victory, a pile of enemy corpses in a veritable hill. It did the dual duty of honoring the gods and demoralizing any other force that happened to be pursuing their march. What men had the chance had been commanded to eat and be given their rations of water. Brasidas was himself enjoying one of the few applies they had stowed away. He bit into it so loudly, Phaedra could hear it before she even deigned to speak. For his part, the commander of the cataphracts overlooked the field of battle with a satisfied, albeit almost facetious glance. 

"Wasn't a bad fight, agreed." He remarked with a nod, turning back to Phaedra. Many of his men saw her and her women as glorified skirmishers, but Brasidas knew they were moderately more useful than that. He'd seen enough of them handle themselves in melee combat to give a grudging amount of respect to them. A bow might be cowardly in single combat, but in war, it was strategic. 

"That will take them down a peg," Tychon uttered, loud enough to be heard but distant enough not to be fully initiated in the conversation of both commanders. 

"Only a hundred pegs to go." Phaedra remarked dryly. It was a small overstatement, by Brasidas's reckoning. A fifth of their army had been destroyed, which was no small feat. However, her point was well founded. Tychon was suitably chastened. Brasidas grinned. "Don't mind him, he's unused to the attention. It's been a year since a woman acknowledged him beyond screaming." 

Tychon gave Brasidas a look, which only deepened the Protos Kapetanos's smile. But the mirth was shortlived. He turned to Phaedra, overlooking the battlefield with her as the men and women worked in concert to get ready to move. "My men are fine. Not sure about the horses, though. We can't stay too far from water." He said, letting the words hang in the air. "How long do you think we should evade?" 

"I suspect you're asking because you wish to tell me the answer." She said. 

"I say we go through the hills, not around them." Brasidas declared. The original plan was to swing around the hills and make it to the bountiful coastline where they could travel with less burdens and meet up with imperial ships. "We cut through the passes. Their army will slow or split. We turn and do what we did today, until there's nothing left of them. Instead of running for months, let us find victory in a week."