[Suzerain of Sheol]

As you said, the syntax and grammar make it difficult to read. I soldiered through it, though. On the whole, the writing isn't especially bad, you describe things in a fairly efficient manner that doesn't bog down the action of a scene, which is always good.

On the other hand, you're dealing in cliches so heavily that they cast a shadow over the entire piece. Unless you can find a reason to justify using them (i.e. *do* something to make them cool again), there's really not much potential for this story to lift itself beyond a retelling of something everyone's seen dozens of times before.

Also, the way you describe the swordfight, Thane should have been able to kill her as soon as he deflected her lunge like that (obviously he wouldn't, just saying longswords are damned fast and deadly weapons at that range, all it takes is practically a flick of the wrist after a move like that to dispatch someone). I couldn't tell if they were sparring in armor or not, but even if they weren't, if he's that much bigger than her, it would give her a few advantages in terms of leverage during the bind, she could have toppled him, especially if he was armored. When you describe the bind, though, it shouldn't be like in the movies where two people just stand still and push at each other; they should be constantly shifting and scrabbling for an advantage in leverage, an opportunity to get in close and take the fight to dagger-work.

Here's a decent video showing a couple moves from the bind to illustrate what I mean, but as Thane says she always makes that mistake, maybe you don't need to go into it at this point unless he ends up showing her how to do it right.

Anyway, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-EON1N_Sdsc