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The Duel of the Ages

Chapter 1

By David J. Parker

Blood Drops and Darius turned on each other with the ferocity of jungle cats. Swords flashed in the dim light of the Caves for but an instant; then it was all over. Darius grinned as he picked up the blood-drenched head of his adversary from the stone floor, where it lay next to the equally blood-drenched body.

1 This is a metaphorical lake of blood. I wouldn't mention it except that, in my first reading, I had some sort of literary block and could not figure out what on earth this meant. Not only this, but by the time I had gotten around to replying, I had spent so much time trying to figure out what the lake meant that I entirely forgot about the line that says Blood Drops and Darius faced each other in the Caves (a setting in my own novel). Thus begins the first inconsistency in a saga riddled with many more.
"Any man who insists on being addressed by both his first and last names at all times deserves such a fate," Darius muttered softly to himself. With a touch of poetic justice, Darius tossed the head of Blood Drops into a veritable lake of the dead man's own namesake.1 The big warrior walked away from the scene without once looking back or feeling a bit of remorse.

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