He was one of the proverbial infants left on a doorstep. His name, Calhoun Fionn pinned to his blanket. No surname given that would have the recipient looking for his family. The family was one of nobility, the wife of a kind heart, so whoever left the child had to have known they would take him in rather than pawn him off on someone else or put in an orphanage. The swaddling cloth was of a fine expensive material trimmed in gold thread. Not something a commoner would have access to. As well the intricate white gold Celtic cross that had been specially made. Runes inscribed like a talisman for the male child. Protection at the top of the cross, health and strength to either side along with wisdom at the bottom. The infant well fed and smiling unlike most children abandoned that were underfed and usually sickly. Calhoun was the epitome of health at about around four months that they could tell. The reason would be different than the usual. The Quinlans could not find anything amiss in the lands or neighboring ones of any child of breeding gone missing. So they adopted him as one of their own and raised him as they did their own. He wasn't a hard child to love but there was a driving force in him his siblings had not in them. He had a drive to be the best in whatever he did and surpassed his peers. He eventually trained as a warrior and in time lost his parents to a war that ravaged their lands. The one brother and two sisters scattered or follow their parents. There was nothing left and so he wandered. His parents having told him but a year before the disaster of his true finding, his birthright unknown.

To find out who he was would be as a needle in a haystack but it didn't daunt Calhoun from trying or more, letting fate bring him to his destiny. It was on a bloodied field that left many more of his comrades dead, he met one of the enemies that became his best friend. The man found him lying there under a horse, pinned and could have easily been killed off even after the battle was done. Instead the man stood there with a piercing look before pushing the dead horse from him and offering his hand. No words but well he knew the action said far more as he hesitated, looking him in the eye as he had been doing and took his hand. It was later that the two shared stories and in a way not all that unlike the other. Certain the stories were different but both were without a home, without a destination other than doing what they knew best to survive. Their friendship grew as they fought side by side until the last battle they were separated, each thinking the other killed as neither found the other once it was done. A battle that had both changing their mind in the useless killing of innocents. Years later he caught up with him after a tournament he missed joining in by a few days for the distance he had to travel and trouble found along the way. For the first time in a long time, joy had filled his heart in finding Peter alive and it was mutual as they finally caught up. Once he was established King of Innis Daingneach, he was knighted under him. He spent the time on the island but when this battalion was organized and two of his fellow knights he'd not met yet stationed in the lands of Heathfield, he came in their stead while they were gone.

More to Come