Soon afterward the doorway opened and Private Skinner appeared.  He gestured with hand signals that indicated the assault team needed help, then pointed upward and made a circular motion.  Garrick turned to Brenna and patted her on the backside.  “Go!” he ordered.  “And be careful!”

    He adored watching the way she moved.  Even with her lovely hair pinned into a bun, laden with her bow, sword and a heavy pack strapped onto her shoulders, Brenna seemed to glide across the ground with facile, feminine grace.  Garrick’s appreciation of her passage was tempered by the fact that he was, for the first time, ordering her into danger.  Though he knew he couldn’t play favorites, Garrick’s love for the girl made his heart pound with worry.

    After signaling Sergeant Vidders to attack, Garrick watched and waited for the outcome of the battle.  He could hear the ferocious sounds of a firefight rising and falling as his men moved through the winery, his anxiety heightened as he watched and listened.

    Brenna understood nothing Private Skinner said to her.  An excited tone gushed from the young man’s voice and he spoke too fast for her to make out the words.  She followed him through the double door into the crush room.  A wide, V-shaped stainless steel trough with a perforated cylinder and rotating paddles served to de-stem and extract juice from the harvested  grapes.  Even though it had been several months since this equipment had last been used, the distinctive aroma of the grape crush lingered in the air.

    In the press room, Brenna stepped over three Kamerese bodies.  Two bullet holes in each torso told the tale of their swift demise.  She could tell they’d been shot from the front and bled out trying to crawl away.  Their weapons, bolt action rifles, had been cleared and moved well out of reach.

    Several gunshots startled her and Private Skinner.  They both dropped to the floor and Brenna squirmed beneath the press as the sound of boots approached.  Sergeant Ringer appeared in the portal and angrily reprimanded Private Skinner for some transgression Brenna didn’t understand.  The Lithian girl scuttled out from beneath the press and followed Sergeant Ringer as the sound of gunfire, the enraged voices of fighting men, and the agonized cries of the wounded increased in tempo.

    Tall cylindrical fermenting vats and a few casks lined the walls of the next room.  At least two of these had been punctured by bullets and wine spilled into a spreading pool on the floor.  Brenna slid out of her backpack when she found Ziggy Hoenzaer holding his hand against Erik Ulmann’s right thigh.  Erik cried out in pain and cursed, thrashing in a shallow pool of wine and blood.  When Ziggy let go at Brenna’s urging, a spurt of arterial blood sprayed across her neck.  Brenna stopped the hemorrhage with her own hand, then urged Ziggy to press against the wound again.

    She’d seen this kind of damage many times before and knew that it was most often fatal.  If a bullet remained in Erik’s body, especially wedged within the leg muscle of an active young man, he might suffer ongoing damage to his arterial network and bleed to death.  The Lithian girl wiped her hands with a rag and fumbled through her pack for a pressure dressing.  She had Ziggy press the dressing down while she pulled out her boot knife and cut through Erik’s pant leg.

    Wine stained Erik’s uniform and skin, making it very difficult for her to see an exit wound.  Brenna felt around the back of Erik’s thigh, but couldn’t find another hole, which meant that in all likelihood the bullet remained lodged in the flesh.  Brenna felt compelled to extract it, knowing that by doing so, she ran the risk of killing him. 

    Though she’d had nightmares over  unsuccessful attempts at healing this kind of injury in the past, Brenna placed her hand over the pressure dressing and uttered a prayer.  A sense of calm flooded her soul as she kissed her fingers and plunged them into the wound.

    Erik screamed and thrashed.

    “Hold!” Brenna demanded sternly, searching for the severed artery.  If she could stop the bleeding he might have a fighting chance to survive, but it was very difficult to find a ruptured blood vessel without her patient moving, and more so whenever he did.

    “Give him some morphine!” Ziggy urged.

    Brenna understood the request for a pain killer but knowing that morphine depressed the cardiovascular system, she shook her head.  This man had lost too much blood for her to risk using morphine.  She glanced briefly at the young Tamarian soldier, her dark eyes stern and authoritative.  “Me trust!” she said, then returned to her task.

    Ziggy’s face reflected panic.  He tried to soothe his friend with calm words while clamped onto Erik’s leg.  The wounded warrior cursed him and called Brenna every foul word in a soldier’s lexicon, but something about the way the Lithian girl worked gave Ziggy hope as he tried to hold his friend’s leg still.

    “Yes!” Brenna exclaimed as the artery melded back together.  She felt the bleeding stop and her heart raced in the thrill of Allfather’s power flowing through her fingers.  After pulling out of the wound, she wrote “NM” for “no morphine” in blood on Erik’s forehead, then wiped her hands clean and washed the wound in warm water.  Then Brenna reached for a forceps, touched its tip and in her native tongue said: “Light.”

    A deep blue glow emanated from the tip of the instrument, and at the sight of this magic, Ziggy shuddered fearfully.  He watched the Lithian girl carefully probe through the wound, examining intently as she manipulated the clamp.  Her actions inspired Erik to scream, but a moment later she extracted a flattened, Kamerese bullet from of his thigh, kissed her fingers again, then began healing the permanent cavity from the inside out.

    Erik settled.  Ziggy appraised Brenna with dread and wonder, then helped her carry the wounded soldier back into the crush room.  “Will he live?” Ziggy inquired.

    Brenna, her dread of losing another patient easing, shrugged.  “Allfather only know,” she replied.

    The firing stopped.  Intense shouting ensued while Harmon Grossmann, the tallest and broadest member of Garrick’s platoon, helped Ritter Wagner into the crush room.  Ritter had his right hand clamped on a gunshot wound and he grimaced in shock and pain.  The back of his uniform had been drenched in wine and his left arm dangled limply.

    Harmon Grossmann grinned at Brenna.  “Ritter was thirsty and wanted a drink!” he said.  “We had to pick him up off the floor!”

    “Shut up Grossman!” Ritter snapped.  “It was wet and I slipped!”

    Brenna ignored the banter.  “I look,” she said, examining the trauma to Ritter’s left arm.  A clean entry and exit wound showed the path of a bullet that had pierced his muscle.  Bits of tattered fabric clung to coagulating blood that had already crusted on his skin, and spatter on Ritter’s flak vest surrounded the spot where a rebel bullet lodged.

    Thick battle armor enabled Ritter to survive a direct hit that knocked him to the ground.  Enduring pain and gasping for breath, this man had risen to his feet again and kept fighting.  The wet floor had nothing to do with his falling.

    Brenna cleaned him up, kissed her fingers and healed his wounded flesh.  As she finished with Ritter and sent him away Sergeant Ringer appeared, leading other men who dragged critically wounded Kamerese into the crush room.  Brenna performed triage and soon became so engrossed in her task that she didn’t see Garrick come inside.

    “We’ve secured the water tanks,” Sergeant Ringer explained to his young commander.  “After Sergeant Vidders attacked the rebels fell apart, so we gained control pretty quickly, and they didn’t have time to sabotage them.  However, we found a little surprise when we reached the cellars.  I’d like to know what you want to do.”

    Garrick followed Sergeant Ringer, mentally counting bodies as they moved further into the winery and down a set of stairs that led into the underlying karst.  He’d counted seventeen dead rebels by the time they arrived in the cellar’s cask filling room.

    A light stick illuminated many rows of wine barrels, stacked and stored in the cool depths for ageing.  Huddled in terror at the back of the room, guarded by Luther Sondheim and Otis Krieger, twenty-nine women–some clutching young children–awaited their fate.  Most of these were foreigners, Azgaril, Vatherans and a strikingly beautiful teenaged girl with Nordan features.  However, some were Kamerese, and of these several bore the double chain helix brand that identified them as slaves.

    Sergeant Ringer pointed to a middle-aged woman.  “Her name’s Hermosa.  She’s the only one who speaks Vulgate, and she says they were brought here to, uh . . . keep the men happy.”  Then leaned over and whispering into Garrick’s ear, he continued.  “I think they’re worried that we’ll want them to keep us happy, too.  It might be a good idea for you to reassure them.”

    Garrick approached the woman.  “You were brought here against your will?”

    She nodded, her eyes betraying uncertainty.

    “But you’re Kamerese.”  He glanced at her left arm.  “And you’re not a slave.”

    “My father was King Alejo’s ambassador to the Abelscinnians.  In honor of his service, the rebels used me for their pleasure.”  The woman’s voice, once proud and strong, dripped with humiliation.

    “There will be no more of that,” Garrick promised.  “Tell the others we won’t harm them.  I’ll personally see about getting you to a safe place soon.”

    Garrick turned to Sergeant Ringer.  “Leave them here for now,” he began.  “If we take them upstairs, some may try to get away, and we don’t need civilians running around on a battlefield.  I’ll request an MP escort and send them up to the refugee camp.”  He turned and began climbing the stairs.  “And if anyone else lays a finger on any of these women, he answers to me.”

    “Yes sir!” Sergeant Ringer acknowledged.

    Garrick’s platoon killed a total of thirty-two rebels in taking the winery.  Twenty-eight Kamerese warriors fell into their hands as prisoners.  After having the rebels disarmed, Garrick’s men bound their POWs with belts and held them in the foyer until the military police arrived.

     In the midst of organizing the prisoners, Sergeant Vidders approached with a map his men recovered from an office.   Though he could not read Kamerese, the sergeant thought it might be important.

    Garrick, who was not fluent in Kamerese either, recognized the word “water” in several places.  The reason his platoon had been tasked to take the winery stemmed from the fact that it had a large artesian spring and storage tanks for irrigation.  In the hot and dry environment, control over water resources ranked high among Tamarian priorities, and he felt proud that his men had successfully secured their first objective.

    Just after he moved his machine cannon and rocket crews into strategic positions, Garrick sent the map and another message reporting his success at the winery to Captain Engels.  As the messenger pedaled away, the shrieking sound of incoming artillery scattered the Tamarian soldiers assembled in the courtyard.

    Bright flashes, flames and the concussive burst of four inch artillery shells bloomed above the vineyard.  Shrapnel shards rained upon old vines renown for producing deep red wines.  Sweeter varieties, inter-planted to make mixed field wine withered under the assault.  Shattered stems, broken branches, shredded leaves, strings of hot wire and orange-red volcanic dust rent the hot, morning air.

    After establishing range, the gunners walked their rounds into the winery courtyard and a hail of destruction ensued.  Holger Faust, a member of Sergeant Vidders’ squad, suffered a direct hit that literally burst his body into chunks of charred meat, and a grisly rain of flesh fell on the hot cobblestones.

    The force of one explosion blew Volkard Wexler into the winery wall, killing him instantly.  Kasch Nagel, the platoon’s communications specialist, screamed in agony as shrapnel riddled his legs, arms and neck.  He tried to crawl away, but overwhelmed by pain, Private Nagel couldn’t even lift his own head.

    Brenna heard his cry for help amid the din, took a deep breath, and dashed from within the relative safety of the crush room out into the courtyard to save him.