The Battle of Shrewsbury [Werewolf AU]

[tiltingwithlips]

The day of the battle dawns cloudy and cold. The men on both sides form up as the sun rises behind the clouds, facing each other across a field of gray snow in orderly ranks.

When battle is joined, most semblance of that order disintegrates. The leaders of each army range here and there about the field, directing their troops, and soon the snow is churned and brown with mud and blood.

Most of the soldiers are too busy fighting for their lives to notice the gray wolf creeping around the edges of the battlefield, crouched low to the ground, her hackles raised and lips pulled back in a snarl. Kate has never seen a battle. It's not exactly what she was expecting.

Comments

[valiantrebel]

For all that he's the king son's, and for all the lessons and arms masters and tavern tales of deeds he's had or heard, Hal is little more prepared and vastly more overwhelmed than he could have planned. He is long since unhorsed, he's taken wounds all over, his hands can barely keep their hold on sword and shield, and somehow, despite their lean numbers, Percy and his men keep claiming the advantage.

It is ages and ages since Hal and Harry met, and longer still since they had civil words between each other. For all his own plans, his father's words weigh heavy on him: even as I was then, so now is Percy. Hal thinks he's caught glimpses of him, snatches of his voice, but there is something demonic about Hotspur on a battlefield, more so even than the stories convey, and Hal's only comfort is that Percy is too honorable to slay him unannounced.

The cold air is shredding his lungs, but he gasps for it all the same in the briefest pause he allows himself, hunched over his knees close to a clearing.