"Give me my battle-axe in my hand,

And set my crown on my head so high,

For by him that made both sun and moon,

King of England this day I die."

He ran through one man, then slaughtered another, bodies dropping like flies about his person, until he came face-to-face with his nemesis... Henry Tudor himself. The two warriors stood staring across at the other, corpses littered about them, soiled in dirt and blood. Richard's eyes pierced Tudor's, and the atmosphere crackled with an electrical friction. Then, once the moment passed, it began...

With a swing of his axe, the king started the final, true duel of the Roses. Henry met this first blow with a well-sustained parry of his sword, and turned it away, before he swung his weapon toward Richard's flank. The king returned this with his own skilled parry. Locked, watching one-another, they sprung apart before flinging their-selves once more into each other's grasps, hurling violent yet calculated combinations of hacks and slashes toward the other, neither able to breech their opponent's firm outer defences.

The grim sunlight reflected from the odd patches of Richard's armour that remained unsoiled by filth and blood, and his whole person seemed to somewhat glow with a steady rage. Henry took a deep breath and steadied his sword, glaring upon the king through the grille of his helmet; both of them knew that not the two of them would walk away from Bosworth Fields alive, and, if Fate chose it, perhaps neither of them would...

Henry gritted his teeth as he diverted a sequence of attacks from the king away from him, his feet skidding backward over the soft, unsteady marshland. Metal clanged together once, twice, three times before Henry manoeuvred himself out to one side and swung his blade back in toward Richard. York deflected this bold turn, and spun about, battle-axe flaring. Henry felt the blade skim his armour, felt his protective metal shell dent by his ribcage, and stepped backward as swiftly as his cumbersome suit would allow, before, not thinking and acting purely on the impulse of the moment, he began a rapid retaliating assault. The king now took necessary retreating steps to allow himself room to parry his opponent's frenzied blows, trying to turn the sword from Richmond's grasp - but Tudor held it too strongly.

It was a show of character that neither spoke - only the arrogant fool chose to verbally chaste his opponent on the battlefield; in a situation of the likes of this, energy was better used by the body's other faculties, and both these honourable nobles knew it...

The sword of Tudor glanced off of Richard's breast plate, a compliment York returned with a sharp blow to Richmond's thigh. Henry felt his armour take the blow, his body beneath as yet still relatively unscathed, and propelled his own blade toward the monarch's vulnerable neck. The blow was once again deflected, and Henry once more felt the power of the axe thunder down upon him, this time on his shoulder. Grunting, he threw his sword blindly the king's way and, hearing Richard growl, looked to see he'd struck the gap between York's knee and thigh. He kept himself focused, despite winning this encouraging strike - the battle wasn't over until the opponent was dead. He then prepared himself for the monarch's next onslaught, one which came quickly and mercilessly...

With a yell wrought from the depths of his soul, the king launched a series of tumultuous assaults on Richmond, a man little less than six years his junior. His movement defied the constraints of his heavy, armoured shell, and he pushed forward quickly and powerfully, slinging his axe to-and-fro with a deadly grace, each blow deflected by a most fortunate skill on Tudor's part, a skill the Welshman was ever thankful to God for.

On came the king like a tidal wave to an unsteady rock face, pushing Henry's combat skills to the limit. Tudor felt himself give in to the blows, felt his feet draw back away from the king, over the cluttered battlefield, a place that had now become an obstacle course where one had to fight for their own balance and their own space. He could also feel the heated gaze of Richard narrowing upon him, could see the body of the last Plantagenet coiling like a viper, ready to strike...

And it was then that he knew, in the name of his father, his family, and of the House of Lancaster, that he could not and would not die today.

He cried out, and his comeback was initiated - his gallant sword dared the king's axe to defy it as its blade proved mightier than the curved edge of Richard's weapon, and it was now York's turn to take the road backwards across the fields. With no crown on his brow, few men by his side, and no chance of survival except that of God's whim, Richard felt his tired limbs yield, his armour take its full weight, and his royal anointment begin to wash itself from his body.

Henry swung again and again, his every blow seeming to be powered by an immortal strength, his eyes now blazing through his helmet unto the king, focused on nought but the here and now... The axe was knocked flying from York's hold before, then, the king fell stumbling over the prostrate form of a dead soldier behind, and his knees buckled beneath him. Finally, with head held high, he found himself knelt before Tudor on the ground, this unintentional gesture framing the immediate future in its very folds...

Henry wasted no time, and before his feral battle instinct ebbed, he plunged his sword down into Richard's chest. A sound escaped the king's throat, one not quite that of a gasp, nor that of a choke, but something straddled uncomfortably in-between. And as Tudor's frenzy faded, he saw the blood rise out of York's maw and trickle down his chin and neck, before it ran down the silver of his armour, and seeped into its nooks and hollows...

The attention of the entire battlefield slowly drew to its nucleus, where the heads of Lancaster and York had met, and a stunned silence seemed to take them all. Henry's eyes remained locked with Richard's fading gaze for some time before he suddenly saw the cavalcade of warriors converging on the scene, cheering, shouting and crying in victory. With their pikes and their axes they all took to adding their own blow to the fallen Plantagenet prince, killing he further who was already dying, spilling his royal blood onto the summer fields.

"The king is dead! The king is dead!" they cried as they proceeded to haul the ravaged, dying form of Richard into the air, tearing his bloodied armour from his broken body. Henry still watched, struck somewhat numbly by the sudden realisation of events.

"The king is dead! Hail great Lancaster!"

Congratulating knocks and slaps hailed down on Tudor's shoulders whilst he watched Richard borne away, and remembered those eyes that had hammered into him so whilst death had taken the monarch to the next life.

With armour torn from him, Richard's naked body was then strapped upon a horse and, without delay, the troops of the Red Rose began to parade the slain monarch about for all to see, a rope tied about his neck and his feet to keep him steady to the steed; by him that made both sun and moon, King of England this day he had died...

"Henry."

Tudor turned about, the bubble of numbness he had found himself in now broken by the voice. His stepfather, Lord Stanley, stood behind him. Stanley offered him a gentle nod and removed his helmet from his head, "Congratulations," he said as he placed his helmet down by his feet and produced the crown before him, the very one that had fallen from York‘s brow; it was now battered and muddied from the rumpus, but no less a sign of the monarchy because of it.

"God has made His decision," the lord added quietly as he proffered the crown to Henry.

Henry regarded the great jewel for but a moment before his eyes rose back to face his alley, and, understanding his fate, he slowly took his own helmet from his head and lowered himself to one knee before him. In view of all about them, Stanley placed the crown onto Henry's head, and cried out to the men as the young Tudor rose, "Hail King Henry!"

"Hail King Henry!" all of his allegiance returned, firing their fists toward the heavens. Henry nodded to them all, letting the wind rush throw his dark tresses as he stood before his new subjects and on the ground of his new kingdom. Richard had been struck from his throne, the line of the Plantagenets had been severed, and the era of the Tudor dynasty had begun.