Billy and Blaze are on a family trip out west where they encounter Thunderbolt - a beautiful wild horse that is the envy of every cowboy. Rather than trying to capture Thunderbolt with fast horses and lassos, Billy makes friends with Thunderbolt slowly and eventually gains his trust.

Kidnapped as a baby, Tony, now age 12, was raised as a German. In fact, as he grew up with an entirely different identity as "Max", he never had any reason to believe that he was anything but German. Suddenly, through a strange twist of fate, he is returned to his rightful home in England and his true identity, but on the "wrong" side of the war.

"Big John" is a 12-year-old boy living as a serf in 13th century England, but with a mysterious past understood only by "Old Marm", who has raised him as a son and teaches him lessons and courtly behavior in secret. He is finally recognized by a knight and learns that his father was betrayed long-ago by a fellow nobleman and his nurse rescued him along with a few precious family heirlooms. After training at a castle under this knight, he sets out on the 5th Crusade (starting in the year 1218 - he is now 16 years old) as a squire - largely in hopes of finding his lost father.