Alice interrupted him, saying, “What are you talking about?” He turned and looked at her. “Joel, once we’re down there, we’ll have no idea where this fire is. We need to walk along the top of this line of hills so we can see it. Then when it’s more or less directly in front of us we can head straight down the hill.”

To Tom’s surprise, Nick said, “She’s right.”

Chris said, “To be fair, she usually is.”

“Okay,” said Joel, sounding as if it really wasn’t okay at all. “It’ll be harder work but if it makes you feel more confident, we can do that.” He pointed at the spear in Tom’s hand. “Mind if I use that, as I’m on point?”

“Sure,” said Tom, and handed it to him.

They walked on, not quite along the top of the hills, but high enough up that they could occasionally look out through the tree canopies of the descending slopes and see the smoke in the distance. Each time Tom looked out he found himself relieved that the smoke seemed no nearer, because he sensed instinctively that they were heading toward something that was no safer than the jungle.

As it turned out, even Alice’s estimate had been wildly optimistic—they’d been walking for over an hour before it finally seemed the smoke was directly in front of them, and it still looked some distance away. But it was within reach, and Tom knew they wouldn’t turn back now, as much as he felt the urge to do just that.

“This is the problem,” said Joel. “We’re walking two long sides of the triangle instead of one diagonal. We’d have been there by now if we’d walked the other way. Still…” He left the word hanging there, full with meaning, and set off down the slope.

Alice turned to Tom and said, “We could just kill him. No one would know.”

Tom smiled. “You’re forgetting, we’re here to stop him from getting killed.”

They followed after the others, and as the ground leveled out near the bottom of the hill they found their way back on to a path, but one that seemed different from those they’d encountered before. It was hard to pin down why, but this had the feel of a path that had been created by humans, and that should have given them hope, but instead Tom and Alice exchanged a glance that was full of foreboding.