Henriad (History Plays, Book 5)

11: once more unto the breach, dear friends

Harry

Thursday night game comes far too quickly. We don't get near enough rest, and I don't get near enough time to think. Kate and I email until the small hours of the morning, and though I'm accustomed to these long days, my team is not.
Our game play is madness. I switch up defense and offense and stubbornly refuse to shoot on goal. We lose 4-9 and Jon takes a serious pounding. Kate knows damn well I threw it, but she has the courtesy not to ask me why. The Tempests are gleeful, but cautious. They expect tricks but they do not get them yet. We are brutal, causing two more injuries and a couple of fights. Rey and I spend our fair share of time in the penalty box.
The next game is worse. Friday, through no fault of our own, we go into overtime. I didn't intend to win so when we're tied up at 3-3 I either have to score and win the thing, which I can't yet, or let us go into OT. Naturally I let us go into OT. That's a sad decision because OT is four on four, which evens the playing field. And while we are desperate to get off the ice they relish in wasting a full fifteen minutes running us into the ground before they score and we go home.
The play off is tied up. 3 wins each. Saturday is the tie breaker.

Kate

"We already know the Bards lost the last two games intentionally. The only reason they let us go into overtime is that Harry was trying not to score," I brief my men, "So we must break them now. They think they can hold out but numbers are still on our side. And so is time. They can't hold out forever. It's game 7. Time to crush them where they stand."

Harry,

"Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more. In peace there's nothing so becomes a man, as modest stillness and humility. But when the blast of war blows in our ears, then imitate the action of the tiger, stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood. Disguise fair nature with hard-favored rage. Then lend the eye a terrible aspect, let pry through the portage of the head.
"Now set the teeth and stretch the nostril wide, hold hard the breath and bend up every spirit to his full height. On, my noblest men, whose blood is from our fathers is war-proof. Be copy now of men of grosser blood, and teach them how to war, and you show us here the mettel of your pasture, let us swear you are worth your breeding, for I doubt it not, for there is none so mean and base, that has not the noble luster in your eyes. I see you now like greyhounds in the slips, straining upon the start. The game's afoot. Follow your spirit and upon this charge,——!"

Kate

"They're screaming again," Arc stares in the direction of the other locker room.
"Remember there are only five of them," Coach Charles says tiredly.
"Six," I say, quietly.
"Still an impressively small number."
"Still do not underestimate them."

Harry

The Tempests may not know what we have planned but they are angry. They number enough to complete line changes and they hound us without mercy. Despite our altered playing style they have gleamed some sense of us, and by the end of the first period we are at 0-0. I've barely had the puck to try to score and already I see us faltering in pain and exhaustion.
The top of the second comes with a terrible fury. The crowd is insane, whipped into a frenzy by our various losses. Kate scores on Jon at the five minute mark and I hear my team growl in anger. Fluellen quickly ties it up with another score and we are fighting once more. We break into only a few actual fights, the rest of the time we are on the boards, struggling to keep control of the puck to at least prevent them from scoring.
We are too ill to speak by the time the buzzer sounds. Thomas vomits the water he drinks and Jon paces the locker room. I'm as weary as they, but do my best not to show it.
When the third period begins I can't bring myself to look at the clock. We need to score. We also need to survive. I stop two people from knocking over Warwick, they're trying to put us out of the game. And it's desperately close to working.
Thomas and I work our way down the ice, but Kate and Orleans come to intercept us. At the last possible moment, I pass to Warwick who waits behind the goal. The buzzer is a terribly welcome sound, but we pay for it dearly in the next few moments.
The Tempests are enraged when they realize they're down one with five minutes left in the third. One bowls me over, coming up on my cursedly blind side, and I feel my head painfully crack the ice, my helmet coming off at another one's blow. The ref blows his whistle but we are up and moving, ignoring him. I shake my head to clear it, ignoring the loss of helmet and skating back down to center ice to where Kate and two other Tempests are battling Thomas and Warwick for control of the puck. And my men are tired and losing badly.
I skate into them, heedless of any real aim, smashing Kate into the boards and locking sticks with another Tempest. Thomas escapes with the puck but three more Tempests are on him and it's a desperate struggle to even stay upright let alone keep control of the puck.
Thomas is tripped and of course the ref doesn't call it, and one of the Tempests shoots at our goal. I don't let a cry escape my throat though I'm not near close enough to prevent it. Warwick is body checked and doesn't get back up and Coach pulls him. We're down to four on the ice plus Jon. I shake my head at him not to call a time out. We must finish this.
Jon dives, I don't know if he'd have blocked the shot but Fluellen is there with him, also flinging himself into the goal next to Jon. Together they block the shot. It bounces back out and it's not called. I fly into them, smashing the puck down the ice. I don't even care how far, just get it away. Kate and I race for it, it bounces off the boards for a moment and the Tempests do a line change. Naturally we have no line change and Fluellen has the puck first and passes to Rey who is not far from me. Rey and I are instantly overwhelmed and we're at the boards again, me pinning the puck for dear life as I fight to pass it to Rey if anyone. A Tempest slams into me and my head snaps at a bad angle, smashing into the glass. I'm instantly dizzy and feel my grip on my stick weaken.
Rey looks at me for a half a moment then body checks the one who slammed me, but we both lose the puck in that.  Head spinning, I race after them to slam one over right before the goal. I don't regain the puck but I do throw off his aim so an equally exhausted Jon can block the shot successfully.
They only come at us again though and we are in a cluster around the goal, myself Rey and Jon packed in, desperately trying to pass the puck back to Fluellen and Tom who try to breach the Tempest line that sits between them and the goal.
One of their burly centers knocks me down again from my blind side. It wasn't meant to be a body check, but they're only just realizing that I completely didn't see them coming. I am climbing to my skates when they shoot on goal again, this time the puck clips my arm but luckily it sails into Jon's waiting pads. My own, unpaded arm, bleeds red onto the white ice as I rise again to go at them.
We're locked in a mass as I watch my blood drip down onto the ice. Rey grabs my shoulder and I nearly throw him off to tell him that  I'm well, worry about the game, when I realize Jon has my other arm.
"We won," Rey is laughing. The buzzer is dull in my ears my blood pounds so heavily in them.
"We did it," Thomas grabs my arm. "We won."
I hug them all, Warwick his arm in a sling, joins us on the ice and we six embrace, barely able to stand in our shock and exhaustion.
The Tempests are staring at the scoreboards in shock, trying to understand how time defied them so.
Kate turns around, slowly, and locks eyes with me. For a moment I expect the anger of her teammates, but her face melts into a smile of admiration.
My team mates are hugging one another, laughing and flipping off the largely Tempest supporting crowd. Jon tosses off his helmet to shout at them, and Thomas covers Rey's mouth.
I look at Kate and open my arms a bit to her, too weary to even move or fully think to wonder what I'm to say now.
It doesn't matter. She skates to me and into my arms. Her arms seal firmly about my neck and as if my arms were made for it, they lift her to me, her legs wrapping around my waist as she kisses my mouth. I laugh, blood on both of our faces, pressed against each other. Then I kiss her once more.