Strings studied the young mage for a moment, mulling on the taste of that lie, then grimaced and said, ‘You think it’s because I’m fated to die here – at this battle.’

Bottle looked away once more. ‘I’m not sure, Sergeant. It’s way beyond me . . . this land. And its spirits. And what it all has to do with you—’

‘I’m a Bridgeburner, lad. The Bridgeburners were born here. In Raraku’s crucible.’

Bottle’s eyes thinned as he studied the desert to the west. ‘But... they were wiped out.’

‘Aye, they were.’

Neither spoke for a time. Koryk had broken his shovel on a rock and was stringing together an admirable list of Seti curses. The others had stopped to listen. On the northern edge of the island Gesler’s squad was busy building a wall of rubble, which promptly toppled, the boulders tumbling down the far edge. Distant hoots and howls sounded from the tel across the way.

‘It won’t be your usual battle, will it?’ Bottle asked.

Strings shrugged. ‘There’s no such thing, lad. There’s nothing usual about killing and dying, about pain and terror.’

‘That’s not what I meant—’

‘I know it ain’t, Bottle. But wars these days are fraught with sorcery and munitions, so you come to expect surprises.’

Gesler’s two dogs trotted past, the huge cattle dog trailing the Hengese Roach as if the hairy lapdog carried its own leash.

‘This place is . . . complicated,’ Bottle sighed. He reached down and picked up a large, disc-shaped rock. ‘Eres’al,’ he said. ‘A hand-axe – the basin down there’s littered with them. Smoothed by the lake that once filled it. Took days to make one of these, then they didn’t even use them – they just flung them into the lake. Makes no sense, does it? Why make a tool then not use it?’

Strings stared at the mage. ‘What are you talking about, Bottle? Who are the Eres’al?’

‘Were, Sergeant. They’re long gone.’

‘The spirits?’

‘No, those are from all times, from every age this land has known. My grandmother spoke of the Eres. The Dwellers who lived in the time before the Imass, the first makers of tools, the first shapers of their world.’ He shook his head, fought down a shiver. ‘I never expected to meet one – it was there, she was there, in that song within you.’

‘And she told you about these tools?’

‘Not directly. More like I shared it – well, her mind. She was the one who gifted you the silence. It wasn’t me – I don’t have that power – but I asked, and she showed mercy. At least’ – he glanced at Strings – ‘I gather it was a mercy.’

‘Aye, lad, it was. Can you still ... speak with that Eres?’

‘No. All I wanted to do was get out of there – out of that blood—’

‘My blood.’

‘Well, most of it’s your blood, Sergeant.’

‘And the rest?’