tiltingwithlips | The Battle of Shrewsbury [Werewolf AU]

He cannot, he cannot bear the closeness or the heat without some respite. Hal rips off the mail on his head and tugs at his straps. He can't recover. He must recover.

He fails, as he pants, his side (his unbloodied side) in stitches, to notice the other man loping easily toward the clearing. In the strange lull, outside the rest of the battle, he hears a laugh, and the clank of armor.

"If I mistake not," speaks a voice from younger days, "thou'rt Harry Monmouth."

. . . Oh, no. Exactly the man -- if he is, indeed, a man, and not some murderous demon as some of the stories say -- that Falstaff had no wish at all to see on the field. At least he's not actually ten feet tall. And at least his attention is focused on Hal.

Kate's head comes up sharply.

Look at him: the Prince of Wales, scrabbling for his sword, his valor all put on. "Thou speakst as if I would deny my name!" he cries, voice trembling even so.

Harry is relaxed: he is utterly easy in his armor. "My name," and there is even something of the mocking bow of court to him, "is Harry Percy."

"Why, then I see a very valiant rebel of that name!" Hal edges closer, sword up. "I am the Prince of Wales--!"

And that's when Harry just stops listening, God's blood.

Two stars keep not their motion in one sphere--

"Oh, well said, Hal!" Falstaff mutters. What a prince!

Hal has half a head on Hotspur, but it seems to matter not a whit to either of them, as Harry raises his sword and crows, "The hour is come to end the one of us; and would to God thy name in arms were now as great as mine!"

Perhaps Hal's blood is rising at last, or perhaps he draws on his days in Cheapside, mocking and taunting when there's no price to pay. "I'll make it greater ere I part from thee," he sneers. "And all the budding honours on thy crest I'll crop, to make a garland for my head!"

Harry's brow darkens. "I can no longer brook thy vanities," he growls, and lunges for him, blade high.

Both the wolf and the man watching them flinch at the crash of sword on shield. Hal, Falstaff has to admit, looks likely to be overmatched -- which means he had best be looking for the best way to get out of here unnoticed. That thick copse of trees beyond the Harrys looks promising.

Although even he is more than a little concerned for the young prince. Come on, Hal, come on--

Kate snarls, her gaze fixed on the men. Harry scores a hit and the rich scent of hot blood blooms in the air.

It is this for which Harry's hunger has grown to swallow kingships: the madcap prince, dishonorable son of a dishonored king, flagging under his assault. Hal is not a mean swordsman, but he fights from fear, not from passion, and Harry is certain: he will be proved within the hour.

Ceaseless, relentless, merciless, effective -- all these qualities formerly put to King Henry's use will, even now, cost him that son whom he once wished switched.

There's no word for that here. Harry only feels the power of his arm, the force of his momentum, the building triumph as Hal makes more and more mistakes.

She's never seen him like this. Flashes of it, certainly, and she's smelled the traces of this on him when he comes home from a fight. But to see and smell it happening in front of her is another thing entirely.

He's terrifying. He's glorious.

The battle is most definitely turning against Hal -- and more importantly, turning towards Falstaff's hiding place, which means no time to escape, which means--

He drops to the ground, closes his eyes, lets his jaw go slack, and shams death as hard as he bloody well can. There's no Northern warrior that will waste time on a corpse -- well, he thinks not. He hopes not.

So close, so close he can--

--taste it, he almost has him, so nearly--

He strikes the prince's sword from his hand with one motion, knocks him to the ground with the other.

Hal's blade clatters to the hard ground, and Hal himself stares up at him, wide-eyed and lost.

Harry can taste it. He adjusts his grip on the hilt of his sword, circles the downed prince, allows himself a laugh, a knowing shake of the head. All these months, forging this one moment--

He lifts his sword. His arms begin the plunge.

The prince is quick. When he rolls to his side and surges upward, both Harrys seem surprised that he's done it.

Yet one finds his feet, the dagger in his hand bloody, and the other staggers back a pace, and falls.

Fresh blood--

Harry's blood--

The world turns red.

Edited 2012-11-14 23:07 (UTC)

Hal did not expect to be so shaken to see Harry Percy laid low -- the Hotspur of the North, wearing that common whoreson confusion.

"Ah, Harry," he gasps, fumbling at his side. Blood is leaking from his mouth. "Thou hast robbed me of my youth--"

Something howls in the trees.

And then a hundred and twenty pounds of enraged, snarling wolf slam into Hal.

(The sound of that growl is enough to raise the dead -- or at least the seeming dead. Falstaff cracks one eye open to see what fresh terrors Hotspur has unleashed. Has he revealed himself to be actually the Devil?

. . . Well, apparently he has a wolf on his side, which is definitely bad enough.)

Hal has--

Hal has no idea how to process what is happening, only that he has only his dagger and his limbs to protect himself, and the fresh terror of facing teeth instead of a sword.

He cries out, and amidst trying to escape this hellhound, makes an attempt to crawl toward his sword, just there--

Growling, she tackles him again, away from his sword, and snaps at the hand holding the dagger. She'll bite his hand off if she has to, he will not get back up to attack her or her husband, he will not--

In the cold, rational, calculating part of him that he keeps locked away from everything else, a wild thought occurs to Hal.

Even before, when they were all young and coming up together, there were whispers about odd happenings in Herefordshire, in Monmouth, in Usk, where the Mortimers lived. Hal heard less of it as they grew older, but other acquaintances -- from York, from Durham, from Alnwick itself -- there were mutterings. They were always mutterings, though, fancies and gossip and rumor.

Yet, scrabbling away on his back from this creature, Hal -- cannot avoid looking into its face, stricken, and wondering --

--if he should say her name--

If there is a woman in there, behind the bared teeth and the wild eyes, she doesn't appear to be in much of a mood to listen to her name.

She stalks towards him, head down and hackles raised, growling unceasingly.

He glances past her as much as he dares. Hotspur is not going to live long; he's gurgling and uncoordinated, supine in the snow. There is little to gain from acts of bravery now: he has done the hard thing, and better to claim the prize with help.

He couldn't carry the body because of his own wound. He needs the help. That is not so strange.

Hal crab-crawls backwards as fast as he dares, desperately aware of his unwillingness to turn his back.

She snaps after his feet, still keeping herself between him and Harry -- and when he's not moving fast enough for her taste, she throws caution to the wind and lunges forward to sink her teeth into his boot.

He drops to the ground again, thrown, and kicks as much as he can.

"I know thee!" he cries. "I know what you are!"

His voice cracks -- anyone's would, and let that man who would deny it be given the chance to demonstrate. Hal's heart thrashes within him. Let her not pierce the skin!

Snarling, she shies back and snaps her teeth on the air. (There might be a bit of leather caught between them.)

Hal needs no further encouragement. He must have faith in the length of his legs, and so he scrambles upright and, with powerful strides, turns tail, back toward the battle, where at least he knows and can match his foe.

Good. Good.

Kate turns towards Harry, and her snarling dies down to desperate whimpers.

The smell of a dying human is not that different from the smell of any other dying beast.

Even now, he's fighting it, but his limbs grow weak: he can do little more than clench his fists and move his head a little. The breath comes but haltingly, and blood is pooling inside and over him.

He tracks her with his eyes. Even voiceless and without words, all he can say is her name. Oh Kate.

Whining, she noses at his face, licking blood off his cheeks and mouth. There has to be something that can be done, there must--

--Oh.

It's an awful, terrifying idea.

(Falstaff has long since abandoned pretending to be dead -- although he's not entirely sure he's awake. God's blood, even in his wildest, drunkest dreams, he never thought to see anything like this!)

Harry has long known otherwise, that the ends men make are rarely of their choosing.

But of all the ways he ever imagined himself dying on the battlefield, none of them have been so slow.

There is nothing left for him to do, lying here heaving in the mud, and if the end would just -- come, with Kate here -- oh, but if she would show him her face again --

Something in his chest begins to rattle.

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