I have a couple of different scenarios about Boon and how he came to be in Earthhaven. So here it is......

Epilogue

"Where am I?" He thought to himself.

With a groan he tried to sit up and found that he was partially stuck, mired in the red mud.

"Red Mud?" His brain slogged.

With an effort he forced himself to a sitting position coming free of the mud with a squelching sound. Looking around at himself and the ground on which he sat. Boon realized that the mud was red because it was mixed with blood. There was blood, dried and sticky, all down the front of his coarse woolen shirt and kilt. When he saw the rent in his shirt he shouted and leaped to his feet. His mind reeled as his memory came slamming back to him. Boon tore open his shirt and stared in disbelief at the small pink scar in the center of his chest. Remembering the pain Boon winced.

His memory became crystal clear. The tip of the sword had struck his sternum like a hammer and invaded his body. He had felt the steel as it entered his heart, as his lungs had begun to fill with blood. He had stood transfixed and staring into the eyes of his enemy who smiled slightly at him as he coughed blood and gasped. Then he spoke, and the words he spoke echoed in Boon's head.

"You fight well, but you have much to learn." The enemy said, and then he put his hand on Boon's stunned and dying face and shoved him back and off of his blade to fall bleeding in the mud.

Boon had stared straight up at the sky. His universe was blue. A face seemed to fill the the sky and it spoke to him as he felt the last strand of his life part.

"Greetings, I am Darkblade."

Boon Stared at the mark on his chest and shook his head in disbelief.

"This cannot be." Boon said aloud to no one.

But Boon knew the truth even if he didn't want to believe. He couldn't deny the fact that he could remember the exact moment when his life left his body. The memory was painful. Boon struggled internally trying to come to grips with his fears. He realized that whoever this Darkblade was, he had known something. Something about the way he had looked into his eyes and greeted him in a manner that said that he expected to see him again soon. Somehow Boon realized that his enemy had known something he did not.

Shaking his head at all the unanswered questions,Boon began a slow search of the surrounding area looking for any sign that would point out the direction his killer went. After a short search he found what he was looking for, but to his dismay all he had were more questions. He stood staring down at the patch of ground where he found the sign he was looking for. There in the dirt was an arrow scratched out neatly for him to find. The arrow pointed west toward the river.

Chapter One

Of Sir Kevin and the Pictish Princess

Boon MacCalhoon was born in the Scottish highlands in the year of our Lord, 821A.D. His mother was from a pictish tribe that had been decimated by the Romans and later the English. Most of the old Pict tribes had been absorbed by the larger clans or wiped out in futile wars against a superior enemy. His father had been a Knight of Templar and had died in the sacking of Jeruselum. Sir Kevin MacCalhoon left word that he wished for his son to become a crusader like his father. The Knight had left a small sack of silver coins and two letters, one to Boon and one to be given to a certain Cardinal in Rome upon his arrival shortly after his fifteenth birthday.

Boon was very proud of his father and for what he had done for their clan. His father had left his clan and Scotland for adventure and to get away from what he saw as a hopeless future for him. The clan was very poor and many of their sheep had starved the winter before. With winter coming, young Kevin MacCalhoon had left his home and set his sights on far away places. When he returned ten years later he had been made knight with fifteen other crusaders for retaking a monastery that had been taken by Muslims. The monastery had been a shrine that housed a holy relic. His father had later confided to Boon that the shrine had housed the chair that Christ had sat in at the last supper.

The knight returned to his homeland and his clan. The Royals begrudgingly accepted his claim to knighthood. Sir Kevin bought land and livestock for Clan MacCalhoon with the money granted him by the church in Rome. Boon's father was made clan leader and they prospered.

Kevin met Boon's mother, Keldrin. She had been working and living with the clan a few years. She did not speak English or Celtic. When Kevin had asked about her they told him that she had just shown up one winter day. Dressed in skins and completely covered in striking blue and black pictures that seemed to be part of her skin. She had brought ten winter rabbits with her. At that time the clan had been subsisting on boiled potatoes and turnips. The people welcomed her into their tribe and they did not regret it. Keldrin could weave river grasses into a basket so fine it could hold water for a whole day. She could also hunt and forage. Many times it was Keldrin who was the only one who returned with game or edible roots and berry's.

Intrigued, Kevin began the seemingly hopeless task of trying to get to know someone who does not speak the same language as you. Anyone, watching the clan leader talking and stumbling for words Keldrin knew, could tell that the good knight was hopelessly in love with the illustrated tribeswoman It was also apparent to everyone, except for maybe the good knight himself, that Keldrin felt the same way about him. Sir Kevin and Keldrin married later that fall and settled into the simple but very enjoyable task of starting a family. By the following summer their firstborn arrived, Boon came into the world kicking and squalling his defiance for the world to hear.