Chapter 18: Interlude—Mordyn
Mordyn is built underneath a mountain.
That’s quite literal; the mountain is hollowed out, the craggy rock scooped away, carved into a maze of tunnels, houses, and trenches filled with slow-moving magma, hot enough to let off a dull glow that lights up the city.
It is a city, despite the lack of sunlight, but no one ever said that a city required sun to grow. Mordyn supplies ore and iron and other metals to the eight clans, including Alyris; it’s a tentative transaction at best, a tense relationship, and only works because of Alyris’ promise to not attack. It would be easy to conquer Mordyn. All they would have to do would be to shut the Mordynin into the mountain, and wait for them to surrender. The city is impenetrable to everything, but that means everything, including supplies.
It’s a threat that the Mordynin have lived under for a long time. Too long, in Elyhandros’ opinion.