The battlefield was still with anticipation, the soldiers standing with their hands upon their weapons, waiting for the inevitable onslaught of the enemy. They had heard the tales of the Juggernaut's army, but they dared not believe the whispered words carried by “survivors” of other skirmishes with this new tyrant's forces. “Lies,” the Generals said with barking laughter. “they are just lies carried by agents of the enemy to instill fear in you and break your morale. We shall not be so easily broken!” The men tried to rally at such brave words. Surely the stories must be nothing more then tales told to instill fear. It was claimed the Juggernaut himself lead his men, a man of considerable age, with gray hair, and eyes that were an icy blue. They said he commanded the hammer of the sky, blue fire that would streak from the heavens and rip his enemies asunder, and that one swing of his sword could scatter tens of men. They said that his skin pulsed with sky fire as he fought, and that his fists could blow a man apart like the blast of a cannon. Lies, and yet not one man in the army of thousands spoke, or laughed, or clanged shield to sword. There was no fanfare, and no morale boosting singing, only a terrible silence. Lies, those stories must certainly be lies, and yet the Juggernaut marched on, unstopped by any who had stood before him. He had marched with his armies from the coast of the west, and was now marching upon the coast of the east, and none had stood him down yet.
Thunder shattered the silence, and the sky broke above, the gray seeming to deepen as it let loose the rains as though it were weeping for all that it was about to bare witness to. A horn sounded from across the valley, and a solitary figure crested the far hill. He didn't stop as he hit the peak, he simply began walking down the other side, a sword in one hand, and the storm hammering down upon him. Even from so far away his white hair was easy to see, blowing lankly in the rain and wind. He kept his head bowed to the rain, his free arm up and shielding his face from the pelting of cold water. Twenty yards at his back, just as he was halfway down the hill, a line of men crested the rise. They stopped as they gained the top of their perch, seeming intent upon a high vantage point. They did not follow the white-haired man into the valley. The waiting armies quivered. The Juggernaut had arrived.
Even dressed in heavy plate armor, dark gray, and glistening from the pounding rain, the man trudging through the mud towards the massive standing army did not look like anything other than a tough old man. One man. He was only one man, advancing alone across a stretch of open ground, his sword in one hand, not even raised for battle. Was he coming to parlay? Certainly he wasn't so foolish as to leave his military force behind him. A murmur of disquiet spread through the men who had been waiting for well over a day for their enemies to arrive.
“Is he daft?” One man would say.
“Maybe he's come to surrender?” Another would answer, voiced in a mixture of relief and halfhearted confidence.
“We should cut him down where he stands.” Was a general murmur.
Such was the anticipation and anxiety of the waiting army, that it seemed the white-haired man advanced in slow motion. Tensions were taunt. Archers readied their bows, stringing them, and knocking their arrows, yet the call to fire did not come. The Generals and their lieutenants were not sure what to make of the single man approaching them. He did not carry the flag of parlay, or the flag of surrender, but he was only one man. What should they do? Could they order an attack on only one man?
The decision was made for them in the form of a single arrow, loosed by fingers too wet to hold a draw any longer. It was a well aimed shot, though the one who'd let it fly had not intended to do so. The arrow clanged off the lone advancing man's armored chest and splashed in the mud at his back. The man's arm fell away from his face, and he raised his head, tossing his hair back and out of his field of vision. His sword, which had been almost dragging through the mud at his side, came up to the ready.
Those in the front line of the waiting soldiers felt it first. There was charge in the air, and then a terrible sulfurous smell, followed by a burning acrid wreak. Light ruptured the dark of the storm, so white that it was blue, and so bright that it was like the sun had taken root upon the lands, and then the army of men who had stood in wait for so long was blown apart, a beam nearly twelve yards wide cloven through their ranks from the front line all the way to the reserve, leaving only a charred black streak stretching from where the white haired man had been standing, and outward in a perfectly straight line.
He ran straight for the waiting army, his armor, heavy though it must have been, seeming weightless on his powerful frame, his white hair blowing behind him, and his sword up in front of him. As he charged, so too did the armies at his back. The forces that stood before him still hadn't recovered from the blinding streak of fire that had cut them in two when he hit their front line. Those closest to him only had a few moments to notice that the man devastating their army looked old and tired, easily well into his sixties, with a line worn face, and icy blue eyes that were beginning to go white and blind with the cataracts of age. There was a bald spot at the back of his head, breaking his otherwise perfect mantle of white hair, and his hands were gnarled on the grip of his sword. His age, though, mattered not at all. Energy crackled down his arms as he swung his weapon, blue light tracing the edges of his armor and the blade of his sword with every swing. Where his weapon went, death followed. Enemy weapons and bodies split, broke, and blew apart at his advancement. He was the Juggernaut, and no army would stand before his might.
The battle was done, and the Juggernaut stood at the east coast, the waves rolling over his booted feet, and bodies piled up all around him. At his back his men went about the grim work of finishing off the living soldiers who were bleeding out, or pretending to be dead, upon the field of battle. A sharp pain in the old man's chest caused him to reach up and clench at the armor covering that most vital of organs, the heart. He winced, and fell to his knees. His vision blurred, and he forced himself to breath calmly.
“Is this how it is to end, then?” He asked, yet there was no one around to hear him speak. “I have fought all my life, and I am to die, not by an enemy's weapon, but by my own frailty?” He spat the words out between clenched teeth. Again, he knew there was no one to answer him. He had no friends, and no one stood near him when the battle's fire was spent. The aching in his chest began to subside, but he knew it would be back again soon enough. Age was killing him.
“You know, you needn't die just yet.” A soft, feminine voice spoke from behind the Juggernaut, and he twisted in place, coming back to his feet to face this voice. A cloaked figure stood amidst the carnage, slight of form, dressed in a flowing green-hooded dress, with the hood pulled low over her face. Even with the hood concealing her features, the old warrior could see that the girl wasn't human. Two tails twitched behind her, red fur, capped with white ends, they danced to their own melody, twining and twisting as they swished.
“What are you?” The Juggernaut asked, weary of the strange newcomer.
“I am hope.” She answered, pulling back her hood with furred and clawed hands to reveal the sleek features of a red fox. “...and I've come to give you back your life.”
