Hammered

couple of hours before sunrise.
    Gunnar got himself dressed and announced his readiness to go. Even with bloody scratches across his bare chest, he looked better than he did in that rugby shirt. He was healing quickly, but I could tell he’d lost something between the rapid changes, the fight, and the plane shift. He had one more to endure.
    As before, Leif and Gunnar put one hand on me and another on the tree, then we shifted to a wooded hillside some distance from the wee hamlet of Osinalice in the Czech Republic. Gunnar was promptly sick again.
    » I’ll meet you at this tree tomorrow night, « Leif said, wrinkling his nose. » It should be a simple matter for me to find it again. «
    » Where are you going? «
    » I’m in Zdenik’s territory, « he explained. » I must pay my respects. Tomorrow night we will go the rest of the way. Please rest. « He melted into the night until all we could see was his corn-silk hair, and then even that was gone.
    » The shift was no better in human form, « Gunnar muttered.
    » Sorry, « I said. » You’re the first werewolf planewalker, so far as I know. There was no baseline data in the lore to predict how you’d handle it. «
    » What lore? «
    » Druid lore. «
    » And now, I suppose, my sickness will be set down in your Druid lore? « He looked less than pleased at this prospect.
    » You won’t be named, « I quickly assured him. » It’ll be a footnote about werewolves in general. It will be an extreme caution, in fact, because if you get sick as an alpha, what might happen to a weaker wolf? «
    Gunnar considered this, then nodded gruffly. Once again, his cuts were already looking better. Soon, I knew, there would be no evidence he’d ever been harmed at all. But there was a price to pay for that.
    » I’m starving, « Gunnar said.
    » You want to eat as a human or a wolf? « I asked. » We could hunt here, or go into town, get a mess of eggs or something. «
    » You speak the language here? «
    » No, « I admitted. » I don’t know many of the Slavic languages. But they probably speak Russian or English. And we could always point at the menu. «
    » You have Czech money? «
    » Nope. Just a few bucks in my wallet. It would be dine and ditch or work it off. «
    Gunnar curled his lip in distaste. » Let’s hunt here, then. «
    I unslung Fragarach from my back and leaned it against the tree—a blue spruce, it was. I continued to strip and neatly folded my clothes as I went. Gunnar sighed and began to take off the jeans and shoes he’d just put on. I dropped to all fours and bound myself to the shape of an Irish wolfhound, then waited for Gunnar to complete his longer, more painful transformation. I took a good sniff around to lock the scent of the area in my mind, then I let Gunnar take the lead and trailed behind him.
    Hunting was uncomfortable for us both, since he couldn’t communicate with me via pack link and I couldn’t form a bond with him like the one I had with Oberon, but we managed to find a small doe and bring her down before dawn. I left Gunnar to it and returned to the tree where I’d left my clothes and Fragarach. No raw venison for me.
    I switched to my owl form briefly and did an aerial scout above the trees to figure out where the nearest diner was. I spied a likely spot five miles away in Osinalice.
    A half hour’s steady run with my sandals off brought me into town. It was a charming collection of timbered cottages, a few cocks crowing at the dawn, and a single road winding through its length, nestled in a narrow valley. There wasn’t really a diner in a small place like this, just a bed-and-breakfast catering to ecotourists and writers eager to escape the oppression of modern cities. The innkeeper, who was also the cook, was a short, jovial, spherical man who spoke Russian and loved his business. He had food stains on his apron and a ready smile under a salt-and-pepper mustache. He cooked me a big breakfast in exchange for some work around the inn—degreasing the fryers in the kitchen and cleaning behind the oven, chopping some wood out back for the fireplace in their common room. His daughter was the hostess, and she flirted with me as I ate. She equated me with the road out of town, and any road out of that tiny, beautiful place was a good road to her. I reflected on the paradox of nature: Some people wanted to escape it and others couldn’t wait to get back to it, never realizing that it said more about their nature than about