Siege by Jack Hight

from the much taller, stronger Carlo.
    ‘Not much of a contest, I’m afraid,’ Paolo said. Then, as if aware that his words might cause offence, he added in a conciliatory tone: ‘Still, it should be over quickly. The boy won’t suffer.’ Longo ignored him.
    ‘Are you ready for your lesson, cur?’ Carlo spoke sharply in Italian.
    ‘Go to hell, you son of a Turkish whore,’ William spat back in English.
    ‘Very well, then.’ Carlo bowed and assumed his fighting stance, his body sideways, his right foot forward and pointed at William, and his sword held lightly, following the point of his foot. William dropped to a low crouch, his entire body facing Carlo, his sword held out sideways before him. The two combatants stood still, gauging one another.
    Paolo chuckled. ‘The boy looks something like a lobster, does he not?’ he said. Longo watched on in silence, and Paolo added: ‘I mean no offence, of course. I quite like lobsters. Delicious creatures.’
    Suddenly, Carlo sprang forward, bounding towards William in a few short steps and lunging at the boy’s chest. William anticipated the attack, and he spun out of the way long before Carlo reachedhim, slashing in vain at Carlo’s heels and then skipping to safety. Carlo continued to press the attack, lunging repeatedly with wicked thrusts. Each time, William spun clear, moving in a large circle around the square. Their fighting styles could not have been more different: Carlo always attacking on a line, moving back and forward only, while William moved constantly sideways, spinning and ducking. William was quicker than Carlo, but he was having a difficult time attacking against the Italian’s much longer reach.
    Beside Longo, Paolo sensed that the fight would not go as easily as anticipated. ‘The boy is a slippery devil,’ he remarked. ‘No doubt learned it picking pockets.’
    Another attack by Carlo, and this time William only narrowly avoided the blow, the sword ripping through the fabric of his shirt. Encouraged, Carlo pressed his attack, trying to close with William. William was on his heels now, no longer circling. He backed away, twisting from side to side and barely avoiding a handful of thrusts. His shirt showed several new tears, and now blood was trickling down his side. Still, William danced backwards, and Carlo pressed on, lunging again and again, his sword passing within inches of William’s twisting body.
    A final lunge, and this time William was a step slow. He twisted into the blow, and the sword skewered his left side, just beneath the ribs. William stumbled, but before Carlo could withdraw his sword for another blow, William rose and drove his sword up through Carlo’s throat and out the back of his head. Carlo fell instantly, a pool of blood spreading out around his dead body. William staggered backwards, Carlo’s sword still lodged in his side. He looked down at the sword for a moment, then collapsed to his knees.
    ‘William!’ Longo rushed to the boy’s side. To his surprise, the wound did not look to be a mortal one. It bled little, and the sword seemed to have passed through cleanly, damaging neither the lungs nor the intestines. ‘You were lucky, boy,’ Longo told him. ‘But this sword will have to come out now. Brace yourself.’
    ‘It wasn’t luck, My Lord,’ William replied, gasping as Longowithdrew the sword. ‘I couldn’t get close enough unless I took a blow. The pig-faced bastard had damned long arms.’
    Longo laid William down, and then poured a flask of brandy into the wound. He tore two lengths of cloth from William’s new shirt, wadded the first into a ball, and pressed it against the wound. ‘Hold that,’ he ordered. Longo pressed the other strip against the wound in William’s back. He then took a long strip of linen that he had brought with him and wrapped it tightly around William’s mid-section several times, covering the wound.
    ‘That should hold you for now, but we had best get you inside,’