The fire crawling across the hills never seemed a step closer to catching them, but never a step farther behind, either. Whether they were striding across doomed fields or picking their way through slow, thorny brush, it stayed just as close as not letting them escape.

“We should stop,” he said, trailing a step behind them in his muddy robe, soiled faith. “Let it catch us. How much more are you going to let it burn before you accept that we’re not getting out of this alive?”

“About sixty kilometres more,” they said, pacing themself as they crossed the latest wide, withering field, its stalks already shrinking black behind them from the heat. No point in wearing themself out with so much ground left to cover, and the fire didn’t seem to mind.

“Why?” he asked, plaintive and winded. He could have tried to stop them, wrestle them to the ground, if he’d really been so ready to die. “This place, these people – they don’t deserve to die this way. Why-”

“No,” they acknowledged, “but the people sixty kilometres away do.”

And if that curse was going to be the death of them, they could at least make sure their grave lay in righteously scorched earth. They could make it count for something, and the fire, trailing close enough that they could just hear its hum, seemed curious to watch them try.