Far below he could make out the village, small and seemingly fragile amid the peaks. It was not difficult for him to find it, but for a less informed eye it would have been no easy task. Turfs covered both roofs and the shallow ramped walls built from the local rocks, and a random arrangement on either side of a bustling stream which twisted between large rocky outcrops ensured that the buildings were not readily distinguishable from the general terrain. A few trees and bushes completed the visual confusion. It was not perfect, but it was adequate. Caves would have been a wiser choice, but apart from there being too few suitable for the number of people involved, there was something deeply repugnant about the idea of being driven underground by the Gevethen. At least in these simple houses, Ibryen’s followers could live lives that bore some resemblance to those that they had led previously. In other valleys, such crops as could be coaxed out of the thin soil were grown, and cattle and sheep were tended. Barring discovery, they could survive here indefinitely.

Instinctively, Ibryen looked up at the clear sky. When the Gevethen had first appeared, so too had a great many small, rather sinister brown birds. Among the wilder rumours that had eventually sprung up to surround the Gevethen was one that they used these birds as spies and that through their piercing yellow eyes everything in the land could be seen. It was palpable nonsense, of course; the birds had probably been carried there by accident – doubtless unusual storms on their normal migratory flights – for, a few years later they vanished as abruptly as they had arrived. Nevertheless, the influence of the Gevethen was so grim and all-pervasive, that the rumour lingered uncomfortably, and no one had seriously demurred when it was suggested that the camp be disguised in such a way that it could not easily be seen from above. After all, it couldn’t be denied that at the time of the disappearance of the birds, the Gevethen had seemed to be more uneasy, less well-informed of events, could it?