Galen
It had taken the fleet almost a week to reach Stalwart’s Rise from the time that they entered the Eastmark Sector after leaving the Creek System. Galen’s father had warned him of the dangers of the Eastmark Sector. That it was the most dangerous sector of Highpass.
Eastmark held the most, and powerful lords of clan Ash Dawn. Four of the five System-lords of the sector belonged to the clan, and the last clan, Ashstorm was a cadet branch. It was the only sector which had remained loyal to King Rodger during the short rebellion.
Sector-lord Sigurd ‘Syr’ Ash Dawn was the most powerful of the System-lords, and elected Sector-lord by his kin. He was a good man, even his father said that. A skilled commander, but more worried about the day to day affairs of the many worlds under his command. He held no ambition for the post that he had been elected to, which was likely why he had been elected to it. He was also a Fabian, as many lords in the sector were.
Stalwarts rise was but the first of many stops within the sector, and Galen’s father had told him the lords would only get more dangerous, and more untrustworthy as they went on.
Sector-lord Sigurd prove a man who disliked pompt and ceremony. A prudent, and modest man. Galen believed that he was a good caretaker of his territory from his short time with the man, and from what those who served with him, but more importat what those who served with his won father said. If your enemies spoke highly of you, than there had to be truth in it.
Galen couldn’t understand how one with so little care for politics could become Sector-lord. Even with inheirited titles, it was easy to replace a disliked lord, but in Eastmark where the title only stood out the holder as the first among equals, it was a bigger statement of the man’s character.
The biggest surprise was who Galen learned he had married. He had two children several years younger than himself, who would in time enter the Imperial Guard of Highpass, but their step mother was a woman named Galla, who had been born an Ash Dawn, and married a Hakon ‘Branch’ Ash Dawn, and given birth to Frea Ash Dawn who he had been in the same class and basic training with during his time with the Jom. He had never gotten along with Frea, but had never known that she had been an Ash Dawn on both sides of her family.
Galen enjoyed the feast in the estate of the sector-lord, and his wife. They made him, and the rest feel welcome, and there was non of the hostility he had expected, or had seen from other lords, or their retainers who had served King Rodger before his death. No Sector-lord Sigurd cared for one thing, the betterment of his own territory, and people.
Galen hoped that the rest of the lords of their journey would also believe in such things, but he found that hard to believe.
