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The story of a Hero forgotten
"What a beautiful day." Barney thought for himself, smiling as the warm wind gently touched his cheek and swept through his hair. He gazed out through his window, upon his land and all the people, hardly working in the fields below. What he did not know, was that he was being watched.
This year had been a good year, the crops had been great and many strong and healthy sons and daughters were born. Last year however, was not a good year, although it ended sadly, it was still for the good of the people. The evil King had been slain by the hands of Barney himself, saving many good men and women from a certain death. He had lost his mind and been corrupted by greed, starving his subjects and killing the men who were close to him. He was unable to meet a person without seeing the face of an assassin. He was not always like this, but when his son died at the age of 6, he started to lose it. Things only got worse when his Queen died while giving birth to a stillborn son. His majesty and Barney used to be good friends, the King was almost like the father Barney never had.
Even though it had been a very heavy burden to make this decision, Barney knew he had to act when the King had stopped the food rations to the less fortunate and starving crowds, and ordered the Royal Army to attack the closest nearby kingdom for no justifiable reason. He publicly refused the orders the King had given to him and knew this could end in two ways. Either, first he would have been set to the pillory for days, to be ashamed and not even be left with an ounce of dignity in his body, only later to be sent to the dungeon with the key mystically disappearing. Or it would end up in a simple duel to the death for questioning the King’s leadership, because those were the ways of this kingdom. What happened is that the King ordered the guards to take Barney away, but Barney was not the only one who had grown tired of the Kings failing ability to rule this land, and so the guards refused. Desperate and with not much of a choice, the King had to challenge Barney to a duel if he wanted to have a chance of earning the guards fear and respect again.
Right from the start the King knew he had made a mistake, Barney was way too much of a skilled fighter than he was. Had he been 20 years younger he would have at least put up with a fight for Barney, but not anything more than that. Barney had already countered each and every one of the Kings attacks before he even thought about doing them. Before he fully realized what had happened, he made a mistake, and Barney instantly took advantage of it and struck the King with a deadly blow from his mighty axe. The King was relieved, a huge burden had been taken away from his shoulders and he could feel no pain anymore, almost as if he had been possessed, and suddenly the curse had been lifted. Barney saw the face of his good old friend again, smiling back at him, saying: "I hope you will do this better than I ever did." Barney goes down on his knees and whispers in his ear: "I hope you will now finally find peace, my friend."
And so the King died and he was to be replaced, but he was the last one of his kin and he had no close relatives to take on his post. The man ever closest to him was Barney, but Barney would never think of naming himself as the new King, luckily it would not take long for the people to unite and choose Barney as their leader. Shortly thereafter, Barney was crowned, and shortly after that, he married the love of his life, Selena.
A year passed and Barney turned out to be an excellent ruler, always caring for even the smallest and most poor ones of his subjects. The dry lands had recovered, and had been replaced by grassy fields which the townsfolk used to call "The fields of Hope and Glory". The lands always seemed to be embraced by a warm sense of calm and tranquility, and with the prospering times such as this, there was simply no need for war or violence.