Harald
The estate was filled with rumors about the upcoming wedding of the king to the sister of the Sector-lord of the Furmann Sector across the Dralan Trade Route.
In truth Harald didn’t see the big deal. People go married everyday and the king was old with children already grown. The marriage was political. Even he could see that at his age. Still it was all anyone had been able to talk about for days.
For days Harald would hear his mother and father debating about attending the wedding. While Harald didn’t care for the wedding itself, the thought of getting the chance to visit the world of Bastion excited him.
Sadly Harald was informed that such a thing would not be possible. His father was required in the Dumgarth Sector where raiders off all stripes attacks worlds for plunder. Mostly Tutha raiders from Eriu who crossed the Void of Eriu and Furse raiders who left the safety of Furse Space to gain the riches of Fabian Space and had setup bases on multiple worlds throughout the Dragon’s Head Nebula.
Harald knew that sometimes ships from Tutha Walhaz would also raid the lightly defended worlds of the Dumgarth Sector but they were less rare, and even more rare was the Tutha from the Lordship of Oritz who sometimes crossed the Dralan Trade Route to raid. More common his father said were the pirates of defeated ships which banded together to harm worlds here and there.
The Dumgarth Rangers were a common sight on Isca and his father often told him stories of the brave men and women who fought in makeshift ships and wandered the sector to keep the trade routes between the worlds free, and report new attacks. The rangers could be found on worlds all over the sector, and they held loyalty to no lord or world but for the old king of Dumgarth which once ruled from Isca after the Fabian Withdrawal of the Dragon’s Head Nebula.
King Radcliff Cadoc was the Tutha king of Dumgarth and forced to swear loyalty to the Commonwealth like his ancestors before him since before the formation of the Commonwealth when the Kingdom of Daxholm raided the sector and killed it’s kings to gain control of the valuable Tyne ore which was found throughout the sector.
Tyne was rare throughout the Settled Worlds of Mann. It was one of only five known sectors which the ore could be found in throughout the north west of the Settled Worlds of Mann. It made those who controlled the trade of the Tyne ore very wealthy but also a target and the Dumgarth Sector was filled with a history of non-stop attack from outsiders and jealous insiders.
Harald’s father had spent many hours explaining the value of the resource and the strength that they could gain from it’s control. As lords of Isca they were surrounded by the largest mines and controlled the greatest trade out of the system. He also explained the important of supporting the locals because they would be his people to rule one day and the friendships of the Tutha lords.
King Radcliff might not have been acknowledged as a king under Commonwealth law, and his father might have been more powerful than the so called king, but to the people of the Dumgarth Sector he was their king and his visits and that of his family were common on Isca. His father treated him not just as a king but as his own king. Harald had noticed that his father treated the King of Dumgarth with more respect than that of King Oswald.
Harald would sometimes dream of being a Dumgarth Ranger, and helping to defend the sector from pirates. Riding in their makeshift starships and navigating the many asteroid fields of the sector which the Tyne mines gathered the resources from. His father told him how the Dumgarth Rangers were some of the best pilots, and some of the dumbest.
What the Dumgarth Ranger ships lacked in size, strength, speed, and any other tech advantage that other peoples had they made up with their daring flight paths through the asteroid fields and would draw their enemies close only to be swarmed by hundreds of smaller starships.
