All the woods he’d ever been to – with the Scouts, with the school, or on holiday with his parents – had had paths worn into them by the persistent feet of people, even if planned routes, marked and laid out with posts and signs, hadn’t been present. The closest he’d ever come to this was the one time he’d gone – his father had called it ‘going back home’, to a place alien to Dalip – to the Punjab. They’d gone as a party up to the high mountains, where the patchwork quilt of cultivation ended and the forest reigned. He’d stepped off the path, away from everyone, just for a moment. It hadn’t been quiet, or still, but it was a world apart from the roar and dust of the cities.

That had been just a flavour, a mere hint, of what he was experiencing now. Once upon a time, the whole world had looked like this. Trees grew, seeded, died, and more trees grew to take their place. Some of the saplings were eaten, but the eaters were in turn eaten. There was no one to cut and burn and clear the forest, until the coming of man.

That thought had him hurrying to catch up with Stanislav, who once again had taken the lead.

He drew up behind him, and the man waited for a few seconds to let him catch up the rest of the way. They’d have to stop soon, anyway, to gather firewood and try harder to scavenge food.

‘This place,’ said Dalip. He was not so much out of breath as simply tired. ‘This place, it’s untouched.’

‘This is true,’ said Stanislav. ‘But you mean more than that, yes?’

‘When people – when we – stopped being hunter-gatherers and started being farmers, we lost all this. Even where we didn’t cut the forests down, we lived in them, managed them. Here, that never happened. If we believe the wolfman—’

‘If.’

‘Even if he’s lying to us, he might be telling the truth in parts. He said his father was a, a traveller, like us. What if everyone here is one, or their children? That there’s no other people here at all, except those who find their way here by accident?’

‘I see. That would mean that there are no real natives, that there is no deep knowledge to pass down, and that people we meet vary only in their levels of ignorance depending on how many generations back they go.’ He lowered his chin, deep in thought. ‘It might be that this geomancer is the pinnacle of lore here, but there will be limits even to her knowledge. This is important.’

‘Also …’

‘Yes?’