Talas sat in the tall cool grass at the edge of the pond, his eyes fixed on the ripples spreading wider and wider. He tossed another pebble into the muddy water and contemplated what he had just been through. He raked his fingers through his brown hair matted with dried blood and debris. He was close to tears and covered his eyes with his shaking hands. Lost in thought, he didn’t hear the rustling in the cattails behind him. He was jolted back to reality by a voice hissing over his shoulder. “I see you survived the battle… Brother.”

Some minor things:

You tell us that Talas is contemplating what he's been through, so we are peering into his mind without being allowed to see what he is really thinking, because you do not let us know what it is that he has been through.

If this is from Talas's point of view, then you shouldn't tell us what he didn't hear.

You don't need to tell us "Realizing who it was," because we get that from what he does and says.

You don't need to tell us that "Anger welled up inside him," because we get that from what he says and does.

Some good things:

You've used good details throughout.

There's obviously tension/conflict in the story, and you're introducing it early.

Hope this helps.

I disagree with Eric on this. I'd keep this start.

I would try to rearrange the "He was jolted" sentence and/or the "He raked" sentence to get rid of one or two of the "he's."

As Eric wrote, do away with the "Realizing who it was" and the anger bit. Rather than belabor the relationship of the characters with two references, condense it into one: "to face his estranged half-brother." Then you can streamline your presentation of Talas' anger with a simple "He dove at Seshon, catching him..."

Loved the branding simile. You've got me hooked.

The earlier event appears to have involved some excitement, as Talas has dried blood and debris in his hair, and Seshon calls it a battle.

Now, if the earlier event isn't of much importance, and you're going to briefly explain what happened in a paragraph or so, then maybe you've picked the right point in time to start. But you might want to consider actually letting us into Talas's thoughts as he contemplates what he has just been through. What is he contemplating? Is he thinking about what a loser he his for letting that steer knock him to the ground? Is he wishing he didn't have to fight against his brother every day? Don't just tell us he is thinking, show us what he is thinking.

On the other hand, if you're soon going to have a flashback to the prior event and explain it in a lot of detail, then I think you have picked the wrong starting point. Why? Because you're trying to create suspense by making the reader wonder what happened earlier, even though Talas knows.

And when you do get to the flashback, the reader actually has less suspense, because they know Talas is going to come out of it with nothing more than blood and debris in his hair.

I didn't want to start with a battle scene. I think that would be too much for a begining. I was intending to introduce the key players in the story and get some instant attachment to them. Then I was hoping to just unfold the story from there. Sounds easy enough, yeah right!
Some of the other key elements and minor characters show up right away as they have been assembled for the fight that just took place.
Does this explain it any better? If I am way off base I would really like to know. I am planning on moving forward with this story with this as the begining for now.

To say that your POV character is thinking about something without letting the reader know what he is thinking about is kind of like saying your character does something without letting the reader know what he is doing: "He did something with the thing he had in his hand."

After all, Talas' thoughts at this juncture are revelatory of his character, and it is in characters that the reader is ultimately interested.

The fact that his thoughts are about a close quarters battle that he has just survived doesn't hurt the reader's interest either.

Talas sat in the tall cool grass at the edge of the pond, his eyes fixed on the ripples spreading wider and wider. He tossed another pebble into the muddy water and contemplated what he had just been through. Visions of faces flashed in his mind. Men he knew, being cut to ribbons, dying. He raked his fingers through his brown hair matted with dried blood and debris. Tears filled his eyes as he covered his face with shaking hands. Talas didn’t hear the rustling in the cattails behind him, and was jolted back to reality by a voice hissing over his shoulder. “I see you survived the battle… Brother.”

Problems:

"Visions of faces flashed in his mind." While not strictly redundant, it feels redundant to say that the visions were in his mind.

Just say that he was deep in his own thoughts and believed himself alone when his brother's voice suddenly interrupted his grief. Telling us that he didn't hear the cattails rustle doesn't tell us anything about what he's thinking.

I would draw out his introspection a lot longer, get specific about what he's seen happen to whom. Don't get hung up on needing to have some physical action in the first 13.

Survivor, I mean no offense.

And he will reveal much more deeply his own reaction to the violence he's just witnessed and demonstrated. Right now, we don't even know but that he ran away, and is fighting with his brother precisely because he is no longer in physical danger...the text as written supports this view even a bit better than the view that he is sorrowing over the scene of death that he has just come through.

As far as drawing his introspection out longer, I will think it over , but I don't think it is necessary right now. I will agree that there is some explaining to do, but I was planning to reveal that in the upcoming scene.
I also want to sneak some background info in without a long exposition paragraph or two(which I truly hate, and only do if completely necessary.

Question: Has anybody out there ever fought with a sibling? Not just an arguement but real punching, kicking and rolling in the dirt.

These two "brothers" really dislike each other and have even taken up opposite sides in a great war. But bottom line, they are still brothers. That is what I am trying to convey here. You know the old saying, "boys will be boys", well multiply that by ten and you have these two characters. They just love to antagonize each other. I might term it: a war within a war. Talas is bigger than Seshon and has a big heart, but Seshon is more agile and stealthy, and let's just say, he has other talents.

If anyone is interested I will make more of this story available when I get a little farther along with the re-write. Hopefully that wont take very long.

PS. I am not just thumbing my nose at all the great comments, it really does help!

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But bottom line, they are still brothers.

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I haven't 'actually' fought with any of my siblings since I was a little, petulant, whining brat, which may affect how I view this scene. I've never seen siblings 'actually' fight (meaning direct physical combat) except when at least one was being a sniveling child. And in this scene, it is Talas that seems like the infant. If you mean him to be the hero, then he needs a genuine reason to fight Seshon, because as the scene is now, he doesn't come across as particularly big hearted.

Look, this mostly comes out of the fact (just revealed) that he and Seshon are on opposite sides in this war. Seshon is now saying by his very presence, "Look, I think that you're on the wrong side of this thing, and you killed good men today out of your folly, but I still care about you." Talas is saying, "Your feelings don't matter, only what I feel matters, and I can't take responsibility for my own actions so I'm blaming it all on you!"

Frankly, I didn't think highly of Talas' resorting to violence when I thought they were nominally on the same side, now that I know they aren't, I think even less of it. It lessens Talas that he acts so quickly on his destructive impulses, and lessens him more that he acts rashly. He ought to die with his brother's blade in his back for dealing so foolishly, and if he does not, how much more likely seems it that it is Seshon that has chosen the just side?

That said, depending on the specifics, I'd kill him (or possibly her, I have a lot of sisters, after all). I certainly wouldn't wrestle him (or her, see above).

Bottom line, when you throw matricide into the equation, you throw out all ideas about fratricide being a bar.

What I'm saying can also be inverted. See, if there are circumstances where it is logical and proper for me to kill my own brother, then logically there are circumstances where he would have been right to kill my mother. Which is the reason I use the preamble "depending on the specifics," in my response. If we get away from talking about my mother, and my siblings (who wouldn't kill her...)....

If this were a less public forum, I'd bring up an example within my family that might throw a little light on this situation. Don't go thinking that I'm confessing anything dark and sinister here. That's exactly what I'm not doing.

The point is as I put it above. Logically, there are reasons that you would would be morally required to kill your own brother, mother, father, what have you. No consistent and credible morality that deals with the possibility of deliberate killing taking place can ever say that certain persons, because of their genetic relationship to you, can never be killed. If his brother is that bad, then he should kill him. If it was his mother that was that bad, and Seshon killed her for it, then he did right, and Talas is being childish. If Seshon is the bad one having killed their mother for a bad reason, and Talas is unwilling to treat Seshon as his enemy, then Talas is still being childish.

The more serious the divisions between Seshon and Talas, the more Talas makes himself a child by brawling over it, as though they were six and Seshon took his toy boat. That is the point I'm making. Either Seshon is truly Talas' enemy or he isn't. X or ~X. There is no other possibility. If they are not enemies, then they may argue or quarrel or even play at fighting, like children, and there is no shame in it.

Just strip all that other stuff away, go back to the original point.

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"Talas lifted him off his feet and drove him to the ground like a calf for branding" doesn't come across well if Talas is supposed to be the POV character. It makes him seem like a brawler by nature, which would be okay, but is the opposite of what we expect from the opening so far. Also, since it doesn't quite seem literally descriptive of what he's doing, it smacks of "look at how easily I can slam this punk down."

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