Two swords cut through the muggy, air clashing together. Two best friends Rantier and Lucien, glare at each other. As their blades ground against each other, sparks showered the air lighting up Lucien’s green eyes.
“Don’t insult me Rantier,” Lucien spat, “you can do better than that.”
Grunting, Rantier pushed his sword against Lucien’s trying in vain to move him. Lucien shoved Rantier back with ease.
“You’re disappointing me Rantier. Don’t make me regret this.”
Lucien spun around to slash at Rantier’s head. A loud ringing could be heard as Rantier brought his sword up in time
[This message has been edited by Second Assistant (edited July 29, 2006).]
[This message has been edited by Grijalva (edited July 29, 2006).]
The next sentence needs a comma: "Two best friends, Rantier and Lucien..."
The verb "ground" is a tense lapse; present tense should be "grind"...and "showered" should be "shower." (Oh...now I see that the rest of the fragment is past tense, so maybe change the present tense verbs in the first two sentences, instead.) A comma in the end of that sentence would help clarity: "...sparks shower the air, lighting up Lucien's green eyes." (Personally, I'd drop the "up", like so: "lighting Lucien's green eyes"...)
Another comma here: "Rantier pushed his sword against Lucien's, trying in vain..."
This is better than the last fragment, but you alternate subjects a little too much. The subject of the first sentence is "swords". The second, "friends". Then "sparks", etc. (In particular, the subject of your last full sentence is "ringing", which weakens the scene.)
While you don't want to overuse pronouns, you do want to set up the scene in such a way as to enable you to use them in some places. (In a little over 100 words, you say "Rantier" seven times, and "Lucien" six. That's more than 10% of your words going to names.) You want to construct the scene in a manner that lets you use other identifiers, so the prose will flow smoother.
If you establish which character is the primary POV, you will have an easier time. Tell it either from Rantier's POV, or Lucien's. OR, if you want to stick with the POV of someone observing, use the kind of descriptors an observer would use. i.e. "Rantier, the smaller of the two, pushed in vain against his opponent, and then staggered a few steps when Lucien shoved back."
This is a rather common scene, and there's nothing of a real "hook" here. The closest thing you have is the phrase "two best friends glare at each other." A sword fight is not such exciting action as to draw the reader in with action alone. I think you should pinpoint the part of your story that makes this sword fight different from all of the other sword fights I've ever read about, and start there.
I'm assuming that you are either going to flashback to explain the fight, or you will explain it during the book. Instead, why not take a few pages, maybe even sentences to explain why we should be intrigued. Like so,taking poetic licence...
Rantier bent down, letting the dust take him away while he spoke to his gods. I don’t want this, he thought, standing again to meet Lucien. I didn’t kill his son, why does he pursue me!
"Because whether or not you did it, old friend, you remain responsible", Lucien spat, allowing only his ebony handled sword to shine from the shadows.
"No one could have stopped it, you know this!" Rantier stood, likewise allowing his ivory handled sword to be seen. It was identical in all but the color to Lucien's. He shifted his foot to the left, knowing that nothing could forestall this confrontation.
Don't know if that helps, and I made up the reason for fighting out of thin air. I think something on the lines of that would give us a better reason to read, besides the fact of putting Rantier in the POV, and setting Lucien as the immentent "bad guy".
Good luck, you'll get the beginning soon enough lol.
[This message has been edited by Rilnian (edited July 29, 2006).]
The fact that you were trying to use a 3rd person POV was clear. The thing I don't know after the first 13 if who is the POV.
If your friends said that after the first few paragraphs the story picked up, you might want to delete the first few paragraphs and start the story a bit later.
Okay, on to the new version:
quote:
Two swords cut through the muggy, air clashing together.
Novice was correct about the comma. My other concern is that you are telling me that the air was muggy. Have the POV show us with his/her response to the heat/humidity.
quote:
Two best friends Rantier and Lucien, glare at each other.
Resisting the urge to put all of this in past tense. 
Seriously though, again you have a comma that doesn't belong and are trying to convey too much information without identifing the POV. Who is telling me RAntier and Lucien are best friends? If the POV is one of them this sentance is going to be very different.
Something like "Shaking his head at the stupidity of this, Rantier draws his sword on his best friend." Now I know who the POV is, what is happening and what Rantier thinks about this scene.
Your dialog tends to fall into a pattern that you might want to be aware of. The same is true for your sentance structure.
I want to know why best friends are fighting and why Lucien is so antagonistic. While I don't need to know in the first 13, I need a sense that some POV is going to be able to tell me this. If you are trying for omni, you aren't exploting it enought to get inside people's heads. If your POV is Rantier, I doubt he's going to care about Lucien's green eyes during a sword fight. If your POV is someone watching the event, than you need to keep inside that POV.
Writing the first draft is the easy part, editing is work. I would be willing to read a chapter or two for you but it will take me a couple of weeks to get comments back to you.
“Don’t insult me, Rantier,” Lucien spat. “You can do better than that.”
Statement, Name. Statement.
“You’re disappointing me, Rantier. Don’t make me regret this.”
Statement, Name. Statement.
Just something to watch out for because it caught my attention.