Walking was like flying again, the muscle ache was gone. Even more relaxing than standing. The cart track turned south. But we turned off onto a faint path that wound more or less westwards along the hills, following the contours. According to Freya, this trail was mainly used by clerics who did not care about borders and smugglers. Food for thought.

Freya wanted to know more about the clothing of my world. Since mass production was unknown here, the explanation was elaborate and involved several detours. Time passed and the miles flew.

Around us was nothing but dense forest for hours on end. As a city dweller, I could identify only five trees. Or at least they looked familiar enough. There were some birches, some firs, some pines and a few that looked like maples. But there were others, straight ones, with almost vertical branches (squirrel would love to climb into them), with leaves that looked like small fern leaves or soft needles. There were trees that looked like stacked palms (un-climbable rubbish, according to squirrel), very broad trees that could be oaks if they didn't have needles. Occasionally there was a cluster of trees with broad leaves hanging almost to the ground (poisonous and close to swamps, said squirrel). I was amazed at how well I could pick up these concepts from the squirrel voice without words. Perhaps mindspeak had also opened my mind to my voices. Although some had become weaker, others I had not called for some time. Walking was natural now, no calling was necessary. In fact, when I tried now, I could not find the voice at all. No answer.

"Freya?"

"What?" came a sleepy reply.

I turned my head. She was dozing on my back again, arms and legs hanging at my sides. I giggled. "Flat, like a cat."

"Cats are great," she murmured.

"Remember when I told you about the voices in my head? How I was calling for them to walk?"

Now she was wide awake, sitting up and turning to face me. "Is there a problem?"

"I don't know. But the voice for walking is gone."

"And you are walking."

"Yeah, no problem. Feels natural even."

"Hmm." She took her time. "The cleric said your souls would merge completely and you would become one. Maybe that is what happened. But only a cleric can tell."

"Then the other voices will also go?"

"Ask a cleric."

"Today?"

"No, no villages here. We take the short route to the Republic. But these hills are a contested region, with swampy valleys and harsh winters. Hard to reach, very few settlements here. Perhaps tomorrow evening.

I turned around and walked on.

Now Freya was awake. "Are you really all right?"

"Yes, the squirrel voice is a great distraction. I have learnt a lot about trees. Even that there are poisonous trees here."

"Huh? Where?"

"The last ones were about a quarter ago. Long, long leaves, wide with some white stripes down the middle of the leaves."

"Please tell me next time."

"Since you are awake, how about some more teaching?"

"Ok, say, 'I am a big cat'."

"I not being big cat."

And so the afternoon passed. The scenery didn't change much, nor did my vocabulary. The grammar was so frustratingly different that I still couldn't quite grasp the basics. 17 conjugations seemed like 15 too many.

Once we passed a large campsite. Someone had made a small clearing. There were tree stumps, trampled undergrowth, traces of ash from several fires and a few large bones. An army camp, Freya thought, likely the Kwal army, since we were in disputed lands and they had come from this direction to fight. Whoever had camped here had gone downhill and south, and had arrived from the west. So the narrow trail that we had been following widened, the thickets to our left and right trampled down, the branches broken against our direction of travel. This way would lead to Kwal.

I longed for a free view. No luck, still dense trees in all directions. A map would have been nice, too, because Freya was bad at explaining directions or geography. But even if we had a map, nothing would change. We had to follow this path unless we wanted to fight our way through the dense undergrowth. At least we could not get lost.

* * *

"Why are you stopping?"

"Something is wrong. The birds stopped singing." I sniffed. "There is smoke and freshly cut wood. And at least two men ahead."

"You could smell this? How did tell apart human scent?"

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She was right. I could not. "I smelt the smoke. But for the rest, I think squirrel and two other voices agreed on this. Someone is up ahead, camping here."

Freya sniffed once. "Sorry, I can't smell anything. But let's be careful. Since the Kwal army has passed through, there could be deserters hiding out here."

"Ok, then let's pass them quickly." I took deep breaths until I felt dizzy as if I were to dive. "Hold on tight!" and then I bolted away.

After three hundred paces we passed a lookout. He soon gave up running after me and just shouted ahead. The road curved and passed through a small cut, where two logs blocked the way. The upper one was at head level to block riders too.

Two highwaymen jumped down in front of their barricade. Ignoring Freya's curses, I accelerated and jumped with all my might. Yesterday's practice paid off: We sailed over the top log with a metre to spare, also clearing the highwaymen. Unfortunately, one of them had an arrow ready, and despite the confusion caused by my appearance, he shot from less than five metres away. I felt a piercing pain in my right hind leg and almost fell over as I landed. But I continued to run on three legs, a very jerky movement, Freya clinging to me tearing my fur. But not for long, I stopped, I couldn't go any further. Tears of pain ran down my face, and my right hind leg trembled.

Freya immediately jumped off and looked at the arrow stuck in my hind flank. "Please relax."

I snorted an incomprehensible sound.

"I am a healer, worked on battlefields. So please relax. I must remove the arrow."

"Out now!" I screamed.

"It could be barbed. Stand on three legs and let it dangle. Please."

"Warrg!"

She held up the bloody arrow. "Great no barb. And not much bleeding. It only hit a muscle. Please move your leg."

I did and almost passed out from the pain.

Then Freya did something like the old healer in the camp, something came out of her hand like a tongue, it licked out the arrow wound. It also left something sticky.

"That must do. I cannot numb the leg more, we are still too close. Let's leave quickly."

She ran beside me. After a mile of three-legged gait, I tried to put some more weight on my injured leg. We ran a little more. Her healing did its job much faster than it should have been possible, or the panic was just numbing the pain. I could walk with all four again. Only now, I did feel how the bouncing three-legged gait had chafed certain other parts of me. It could not be helped.

After running a mile barefoot, since then was no time for putting on her shoes, Freya stopped. Now, her feet needed some healing too.

"Freya, riding me."

She did not bother to correct my surely wrong conjugation and went straight to mindspeak. "Let me check the wound again. Are you really fine?"

"Much better. These legs are made for walking." Of course, she did not get the reference. "Freya, please!"

She felt a little heavier now, and I walked slower. My gait was also not as smooth as before. But we were getting further away from the highwaymen. Freya was tending to her feet on my back. She was humming a slow hymn. Not sure if it was for me or for her, but it was relaxing.

A little later, she put on her shoes and walked beside me, stroking my fur from time to time to reassure me that everything was all right. When the numbness from Freya's healing started to fade, she put in again more healing magic. That was the only way to describe it.

"If clerics can do magic, and you healers can do magic, what magic then do mages?"

"Huh? You are really good at distracting me. Mages do useless magic. Mostly they study magic."

"Do you hate mages?"

"The ones who made the centaurs, yes. Weather mages, no."

"So you have weather mages. Can they make a thunderstorm?"

"They? No, they just tell you that there will be a thunderstorm."

Somehow these mages sound more like scholars. "Do clerics go to university?"

"Some, the important ones."

"And healers?"

"Eh? No, of course not. How would you learn healing at a university? Ha, here, read this book and then heal this guy?" She laughed.

I was embarrassed because I did not have a good retort. I hadn't studied at a university, but I still felt the urge to defend the scholars. On the other hand, Freya seems very capable, but she would not even be allowed to touch a patient in my world.

"Have I hit a nerve?"

"No, only, in my world the answer would be the other way round. No one would be allowed to heal who had not passed a university exam."

Now she was silent for a long time.

* * *

The sun touched the treetops when the road started to descend steadily. A little later, the road curved. Below was a steep cliff, so no trees obscured the view of a wide valley. The sun was at the horizon on the far side. Soon the road descended into the vineyards and further down into the valley. We instead walked north, a narrow path at the top of the vineyards and then straight into the forest again. Luckily it was a beech wood with little undergrowth. Soon came a challenging river crossing where I needed all my jumping capabilities and my claws to get from rock to rock without sliding in the gushing white water. On the other side, I was crying. "Please, get down!" I pressed. It was stupid to have put that much strain on my right hind leg.

Freya patted my flank and stroked the fur and then numbed the wound again. "Sorry, I should have never allowed this!"

"Hey, I jumping. Now, walking slow."

"Enough for today. We must find a camp soon."

Freya was right. The sun had gone down and even the twilight was fading. And the highwaymen would never dare to come this close to the valley.

The forest was still a beech wood, light and as bright as it could be in the fading light, with a lot of space between the trees and almost no undergrowth. But with a steep gradient. We followed the contour line a short distance until we came to the next small creek.

"Let's camp here. There is a flat ground over there and water here.” Freya took off her shoes and massaged her feet.

"Why not going valley."

"As I told you before, this land belongs to the Kwal kingdom."

"And I have no passport."

She looked at me. "Again some stuff from your world?"

"Never minding."

"You only have Republic coins. They lost the war. We will not be welcomed here. So also no fire tonight."

"We having bread, cabbage, carrots. No needing fire."

"Yes, big cat with a vegetable sweet tooth. And thick fur against cold nights."

"Freya hugging me sleeping cold."

She beamed. "For sure!"

After the evening meal, it was as dark as in the tent in the camp. The moon was probably still behind the hilltops and no stars could be seen through the thick canopy. Since the ground formed a little hole, I laid on my back like in a hammock. Freya was sprawled on my lower body, exuding the heat of youth. I put my tail over her and held its tip in my hands, cuddling her.

The pain in my leg was present but bearable, My mind began to wander. I thought about how lucky I was. No, not because of the escape. Now, I might not be fully human anymore. But this body was almost superhuman in endurance and speed. I was even paid for hiking through largely untouched lands. It was warm weather, just like late spring, and no mosquitos. Just a great outdoor experience in unspoiled nature. Ok, there have been battles and highwaymen, a lack of facilities, but if I had to live rough in the north district of my town, mugging would have been rather an hourly thing. Even with the highwaymen, I would have paid for such an experience back in my world. Well, people paid for that, buying books, movies, and games.

With that, I fell asleep.