Mamming Hills

The Mamming Hills were a desolate area of Unkerlant, important becuase they contained mines of Cinnabar - the material which dragons needed to eat in order to breath fire. Cinnabar being thus a key munition of war, the Mamming Hills were an area of prime strategic importance.

A major component of the strategy of Algarve in its war with Unkerlant was the drive to capture the Mamming Hills - thus getting a plentinful supply of Cinnabar for its own dragons while denying them to Unkelrlanter ones. Like other Algarvian officer, the dragon-rider Sabrino believed that achieving this aim might bring Algarve a big step towards altogether winning the war. However, Rathar and the other Unkerlanter commanders were also aware of the same. The fierce resistance by King Swemmel's troops at Sullingen was motivated by the determination to block the Algarvians from reaching the Mamming Hills. This was eventually vindicated, at a very high price in bloodshed, and the Mamming Hills remained far behind Unkerlanter lines throughout the war.

Working and living conditions at the Mamming Hills mines, where tempratures fell very low in the winter months, were atrocius. The mines were worked by slave labor, originally of Unkerlanters who had incurred the suspicion of King Swemmel's Secret Police for real or fancied plotting. In the later parts of the war, these were joined by large contingents of Alagarvian and other prisoners of war.

The guards made little distinction between Unkerlanter and Alagarvian prisoners, all being treated the same (badly). And for their part, the prisoners - though they had just been involved in fiercely fighting each other - felt no great animosity, feeling that "they had all lost the war" and that they had little to expect except a lingering death from which there would be no reprieve.

Garivald was one of the very few prisoners who ever managed to succesfully escape from the Mamming Hills - his success due in considerable measure to his dormant magical powers of which he was himself almost completely unaware.

Literary Note
In their wartime role as a strategic objective, the Mamming Hills stand for the oil wells of the Caucasus, which the Germans sought to capture until blocked as Stalingrad. As a harsh slave labor prison, they stand for Stalin's labor camps in Siberia.