Order of the Huntress

The wind howled as Eiza plummeted toward the desolate dunes of the earth thousands of meters below her. The sky was clear of clouds with a slight haze and surrounded her almost completely. Rushing up at her from below was an undulating whisper of tans and browns out to the horizon. No signs of life anywhere. But that had become more common than not in the last few years. That was exactly why they were here.

A strong gust pushed her to her right. She glanced over her shoulder to see her father looking back at her. A curt nod said all she needed. Move back into formation, you trained for this. And she had. Countless hours in the wind tube. Tandem jumps. Then base jumps. She had been the perfect student. But nothing quite prepared for actually dropping out of an aircraft on your own for the first time. Especially into a desolate wasteland surrounded on all sides by a warzone. It was going to be a tight maneuver. They had to remain unseen, below the sightlines of the surrounding battlefield. They could not be mistaken for spies by either side; to draw fire and have holes cut in their ‘chutes would not be good.

To Eiza’s left her sister stared downward with piercing focus as the earth stampeded toward them. One small mistake on anyone’s part could spell any or all of their doom. And this was their last hope. Their plan to escape into the desert was the last line on a life free of brigands and worse. Even if it would be bleached with dust and scorching sun.

The altimeter flashed in her periphery, she pulled her cord and prayed there was enough time to slow her descent without her landing forcing her tibia through her flesh. The feeling of deceleration jerked up through her chest. To her left and her right were two matching low profile ‘chutes with her family dangling from paracord beneath. There was a heavy breeze to contend with, but in comparison to the howling that came from freefall, it felt peaceful. The view down was disorienting in its sparseness. Dunes make bad landmarks for gauging distance.

In what felt like only moments, the ground rushed up around her. She guided herself into a valley between the dunes and slammed into the ground harder than she would have liked, but not so much that she lost her footing. She trotted to a stop. Her ‘chute cascaded behind her shuddering and fluttering in the gentle scorching breeze. A few deep breaths later and she hoisted in her ‘chute and roughly folded it to prevent it from blowing away before anchoring it with her pack. She surveyed the space around her and found herself in the company of only sand, cascading up to the sky on all sides of her.

Panic set in-- she had seen their shoots open, hadn’t she? That couldn’t have been in her mind. After that first look, she hadn’t had the time to check again, focusing on her own landing. They hadn’t been shot down had they? Radios would have made this easier, but it would have also made it easier to be seen by those they were camouflaging themselves from. Eiza started to the right of where she landed and started running up the dune. Her feet slid from under her, the soft sea of sand slithering away under the equilibrium-breaking weight of her boot. She became frantic as the control of her own body seemed to slide away with the sand beneath her feet. But she clambered on and reached the ridge of the dune. There on the far side, she found her father cutting paracord with a knife. Freeing himself from a tangle of cord and sail. It didn’t appear his landing had gone quite as smoothly as hers. Not that hers was a morning stroll either.

With the relief that her father was at least conscious and relatively mobile, Eiza’s attention snapped back across the dune valley to the far side where she saw her sister’s ‘chute hoisted just over the crest of the next dune, rippling uncontrollably. Shasta should have been drawing it in already. Her gaze snapped back to her father.

“Do you need help, da?”

Her father paused and looked up the knoll at her, “no I’m fine, just a bit of a tangle, go check on your sister, we need to be moving, I hope nobody saw us, but we need to find cover quickly.”

Eiza turned and half ran half slid down the dune and across the valley floor then clambered up the far side with the same fervent chaos as the first time. Shasta should have been pulling in her ‘chute already unless something was wrong. It shouldn’t have just been flailing in the breeze. She knew the plan just as well as Eiza, and there was no time to spare once landfall was made. Eiza made the crest and followed the lines from the ‘chute down to her sister’s limp form contorted in the sand halfway down the dune. Tripping and stumbling all the way she ran to her and fell at her side.

“Shasta, Shasta!” Eiza rolled her over and checked her pulse. Present and strong. She snapped her fingers next to her ear, “wake up girl we’ve got to get going,” she gently shook her shoulder, and Shasta breathed in sharply.

“Ow fuck Iz, watch the shoulder.”

“Oh thank the goddess, get your ass up, we’ve got to get going.”

Shasta looked at Eiza with fatigued bemusement and slowly sat up. She winced as she moved to grab the paracord and pull in her ‘chute and shifted to using her other arm instead.

“You want some help, little sister?”

“I’m good Iz, how’s da?” she said as she finagled dragging in the sail using just one arm and leverage from her foot.

“Suit yourself, he is fine, was a little tangled, but he was moving and sent me to check on you, so he can’t be in too bad a way.”

After a few moments of Shasta wrestling with her ‘chute, she moved to stand up and Eiza reached out to give her leverage. She grabbed and pulled herself to standing but stumbled when she put weight on her other foot. She sighed deeply and looked into Eiza’s eyes.

“I don’t know if I can walk on this.”

“Fuck. Okay, wait here I’ll get da and our gear, we’ll figure it out.”

*

Fortunately, there was no need to maintain the integrity of the ‘chutes. Eiza and her father lashed together a sled stretcher using the cord and the sail material which slid on sand nearly as well as through the air. Tethered to the waists of both they began their trek through the dune sea guided by their father. He was a quiet man. But most were these days. The pain and loss that came with the fall ate away at everyone who lived through it. Those who came after hardly knew any different. Eiza remembered his playfulness when the girls were younger, but that all changed when they lost their mother. Their father became quiet until he decided to train them to protect themselves. To survive. Then he was still short of words, but it gave him focus again.

Scrubland began to nip at the edge of the sands. Slowly at first. An occasional bush creeping out of the dunes. Stones anchoring the surface. Then more and more the scrub grew thicker. Spiny succulent euphorbias towering from the crags between stones. Still no trees. There probably wasn’t enough water to support anything but the bush here, but they were slowly stumbling out of the wasteland.

The sun sat low on the horizon and the temperature began to drop into the range of bearable. It would be difficult to travel after dark. They didn’t dare to use lights in the open desert. They had planned to reach their waypoint well earlier in the day, but dragging Shasta across the undulating dunes had slowed their progression significantly. If they didn’t make it in time they might have to make up a tent using the sails to ward off the biting cold of the desert night.

“It’s just up ahead here, less than a kilometer,” not a man of many words, but somehow always had the answer to the question you were about to ask.

They came up to the single-level stonework building slowly. There was no light from inside and the sky had moved firmly into twilight. The full moon and open landscape helped visibility slightly, but they watched with caution from behind cover at a distance. After a lack of movement, they decided it was safe to move inside. The site was well worn by years of bludgeoning by the sands, but it wasn’t in as bad of shape as they had expected. Doors and windows remained present and latched. Benefits of a dry climate, erosion takes much longer. Da had told the girls that it was once a motel, a sort of way station for travelers. It had amenities, whatever those were. For us it was a roof and an identifiable point on the map from the past.

They stepped through the front door and the lights flickered on.

“Fuck,” da darted his gaze around the walls and then moved to a switch and shut the lights off. “Guess the vedu still works, hope nobody is watching this place.”

The trio stumbled and limped through the halls and found a room with two beds that looked unslept in, and refilled their waterskins from the miraculously still flowing faucet. The room was strange. It was neat and somewhat frivolous. A large old-style monitor was on the wall, but no interfacing equipment seemed connected to it. No work tables. Just beds, lights, and a bathroom annex.

With the window curtain drawn, they were able to find the power regulator for the room to turn on the lights without fear, and take stock of their position. They were battered and bruised. Eiza was mostly unscathed, chafing and bruising from her ‘chute pack, and then the belt to tow her sister. Da was a little worse off, everything functional, but covered in bruising and scrapes from a rough tumble down the dune wrapped in chafing cord. Shasta was in the worst way, her shoulder had been dislocated and reset itself in her fall. It still hurt and restricted her movement. And her ankle had swollen to twice its normal size. She wouldn’t be walking any time soon.

“What’s the plan da?”

“We’re going to have to hole up here for a few days, give Shas some time to recover. We have some ground to cover to make it to your Gran’s compound. We are good on food and the water is safe. If nobody comes for us tonight, then nobody saw us.”

Famous last words. Eiza woke in the night being pulled from bed by unfamiliar hands while Shasta screamed next to her. It was still dark out and the lights were off. There was almost no sense of how many were in the room. More than four but less than ten if she had to guess. They didn’t speak and moved silently. A sickening wet cough came from the far side of the room as a cloth smelling sickly sweet was held over her mouth and nose and the world faded back into blackness.

***

16 Years Later

The plan had always been to wait out the storm. Stay with Gran while the conflicts and the plague subsided. After what happened to their Ma, hiding his girls in the eye of the storm seemed like the best thing Da could do for them. Problem was that the storm they were running from back then was a light drizzle compared to the torrent that flooded across the globe since.

Not that they had ever found their Gran or her compound. That night all those years ago left them orphaned and conscripted into the Order of the Huntress. Not a place their parents would have liked them to be, but in a blood-soaked world, using their rage to wet their blades was at least a fate better than death… or worse. And there was a lot worse for girls in the world that came since the fall.

Eiza leaned on a pillar between the entrance to the Order’s sanctum, watching the Morti preparing her predecessor’s corpse for internment in the funerary grounds. Black-robed figures rippling through shadows and firelight. A sea of torches and candles cast looming shadows up the sheer cliffs to either side of the grounds. The Sanctum behind her was carved elaborately out of those same faces of stone. Her home for the past sixteen years. Or if not a home, at least the place she came to recover between missions beyond.

“Hello little sister, fine evening if not for the smell of burnt flesh.”

“Still can’t sneak up on you, even after all these years.”

“I didn’t ascend to Matriarch’s Second for my lack of senses, and you didn’t ascend to High Mortis for your abundance of stealth.”

“Always so pointed sister, you know your words don’t have to be as sharp as your blades just because of your position. It is a little cliche, don’t you think?”

Eiza looked to Shasta, her slight form haloed by billowing black robes. A silver crown of phalanges crested her forehead. A silver ribcage bodice to match Eiza’s wrapping her torso. For a moment she saw her little sister through years of death, grief, and anger. But only for a moment. She hardened at the neverending loss, “was there something you needed, little sister?”

Shasta looked away, surveying her group of priestesses at work, “I have heard whispers,” she susurrated, “the Matriarch means to move against you. She was none too fond of you killing her old friend, your predecessor.”

“I only did as the Goddess willed to protect the daughters.”

“As she wills it, yes, but the Matriarch seems to think her personal revenge is next on the Goddess’ to-do list.”

“Wonderful. And the others?”

“Most of the acolytes are with us. The celebrants are split. It is hard to say accurately if we have a majority at the present.”

“When does she mean to move?”

“Soon.”

“Fuck.”

“Fuck indeed. I need to tend to my murder of crows, let me know your plan when you do.”

“Of course, little sister.”

**

10 Days Later

Eiza stood in the back of the funerary grounds. A ten-meter wall in front of her that ties the walls of the canyon together. Her gaze locked on three cherubim heads carved out of the stone. Black, white, black they idolized the past Matriarchs in their ascension to Matron Saints. Each spouted water from pursed lips into a stonework trough two meters below. The stream flowed gently along the wall to a spout that let it pour off into a crystalline basin. Eiza knelt and first anointed her hands with the sacral water then her forehead.

She rose to her feet and breathed in deeply as she heard a growing murmur from a throng of her sisters gathering behind her. She turned to face out across the funerary grounds. Arrayed altar tombs and shrines carved of the same stone of the cliffs rose from the white sands decorated with dead and dried flowers and half-burnt candles. Across the grounds from where she stood, the Matriarch rose above the group, leaning her old bones on her lectern. She had been looking tired as of late, especially since Eiza’s ascension, but in the biting sunlight she looked like stone holding up the weight of the world. Unmoving and inflexible but the wrong strike or pressure could cause her to crumble into dust. She looked out across the crowd and made eye contact with Eiza over the heads of their charges.

“Settle, daughters, settle.” The Matriarch raised her rattling voice over the murmur of the crowd and directed her gaze to the women. “Yes, there has been much… turmoil as of late. Yes, it is unlike our order to call two no-confidence votes in such close succession. But my concern remains. I have guided this Order for over forty years. I have seen us through the Fall and the chaos that followed. I have protected you… I have protected us all from outside forces that would have us undone. We have prospered in this new world. We have saved more daughters than we ever have before. The tides have changed but under my guidance, and following my intuition we have become so much more. And my intuition is calling for me to heed it now. We have made a grave error in ascending sister Eiza so soon. It pains me that we can not simply reverse that decision and spare our sister. But sentimentality can not rule us. We must put the Order first. I call for a vote of no-confidence in sister Eiza for her heresy and put forward sister Claeta as her successor. Claeta, please step forward.”

A flutter of satisfaction rolled through Eiza, “Claeta left on assignment with the Hallowed Ones this morn, Matriarch.”

“On whose authority!?” Her eyes widened, with rage, but also with something else.

“Mine as the second seat, there was a particularly nasty entanglement amongst the warlords of the west I needed our best to unspool, they may not be back for some weeks.” Eiza slowly made her way up to the small crowd gathered around the Matriarch, she let her feet fall heavily, her armor and blades clattering and increasing her presence. The group parted for her, she placed her hands on shoulders as she passed them, making eye contact. “But what of this heresy you speak of?”

“You know what I speak of, Eiza. That little stunt you pulled with the Kingdom of Ur. One of our oldest allies since the Fall shattered. If they recover we will never have their trust again.” She turned out to the group. “Unless we take accountability and prove our goals are in alignment.”

“Allies?” Eiza scoffed performatively and shook her head as she looked down momentarily, then turned back to the group. “Would an ally enslave our daughters and our sisters? Do our goals align when it comes to their rulers using our little sisters as playthings? If we speak of accountability, did I not merely hold those bastards who represent everything that our sisters came here to escape and be protected from accountable for their actions?” Eiza cracked her neck and looked around to her sisters dejectedly, the gazes meeting hers a mix of rage and sadness, but not directed at her. “Or is sycophantic barbarism the true mission of our Order, not the protection of our daughters?”

“Enough! It was a necessary evil to protect our interests. I wouldn’t expect a child like you to understand.”

“A child like me? I hardly think our reverent sisters would appoint a child as their second. You denigrate their sensibilities.”

“You twist my words sister Eiza. I hate that it has come to this, but it is time to call the vote, whether or not your would-be successor is present. All in favor?”

Silence. Stillness. Eiza locked eyes with Shasta across the crowd and saw the corners of her lips rising almost imperceptibly under her ritual paint. Not a single sister voted with the Matriarch. Eiza could now see what was beneath her rage. It was fear.

Shasta stepped up next to the Matriarch and spoke clearly and calmly, “my sisters, my daughters, we have spoken on sister Eiza. While I disagree with her conclusion, there was a kernel of truth in the Matriarch’s assessment. We must put the Order first and not let sentimentality affect our judgment. I believe we all see what this… outburst has been. The Matriarch is set in the old ways. The ways before the Fall. The ways that made allowances for the monsters who would do our daughters harm. The ways that sought to pursue vengeance and vendettas over the mission of the Order.” She paused and took a deep breath, “I believe there is a vote of no-confidence that needs to be made today, but not in sister Eiza, who has done nothing but uphold our mission and protect our daughters, but in the Matriarch. I am grateful for where she has brought us, but it is a new age, and I believe it just became apparent to all of us that we need new leadership. All in favor?”

The hands darted to the heavens and the ayes rang like a chorus. Not a single acolyte or celebrant objected. Not a single one hesitated to draw their blade once the verdict was announced.

The Matriarch scoured the crowd with horror, knowing the unavoidable fate that was surging towards her. To her credit, she didn’t cry out. She didn’t fight it. She accepted it as all who had come before her. The crowd closed in around her, each sinking a blade into her soft flesh. She choked down wet coughs as she stared Eiza in the eyes, flinching with every added blade. Slowly she faded. Eventually, she fell. And the crowd spread and parted to let Eiza approach the lectern. Shasta knelt next to the Matriarch’s corpse, closed her vacant eyes then removed her golden crown of knives and bones. She stood and turned to Eiza, a look of somber relief on her face. She raised the crown and gently placed it on Eiza’s head.

“As the Goddess wills it, Matriarch Eiza has ascended, long live the Order.”

“Long live the Order!”