As snowmelt trickles into the cisterns high in the
mountains, a once noble line plots retaliation against a long-standing familial
slight. In a square tower built onto a narrow ledge set against the cliffs, seven
sisters use that ancient grievance to whet their vengeance. Each had sworn an
oath to her mother, as she had sworn to her mother before, to exact not mere
retribution but a watershed transformation to end the judicially sanctioned
kidnappings, enslavements, heresy and flight. They have well-worn reputations
as warriors, witches and ingénues. Older, wiser men tell them they cannot
succeed. They aren’t strong enough, aren’t skilled enough, aren’t aggressive
enough. Aren’t ruthless enough. In the way of all youth, the sisters do not
believe them. They nurse their righteous hatred like an ill-begotten child.
Where the air is clear and untainted, priests perform
divergent rituals, one to steal a glimpse of heaven's mirror, the other to
enslave it. Conflicting visions emerge, ones that have to be rolled and
hammered in the furnace of a conclave before the old, wise men will concede
their blessing. Even from beyond the bricked up chamber, the sisters leave
nothing to chance. Favors are recalled, debts repaid, barters exchanged, bribes
expended, blackmails extorted. Slowly, reluctantly, their blade is beaten into
shape. Each layer presses closely to the next, iteration after iteration with
only small variances between, until a strong, supple weapon has been crafted. Once
the old, wise men are set free, carefully tailored messages flow into the
valleys, each meant to resonate with a different faction of the powerless and
oppressed. The time has come. This earth is yours to inherit. God wills it.
Women gather, called by complementary visions, armed and
armored to sweep downhill from their strongholds to reclaim the fertile fields
below. They give over the care of their infants and toddling children to the
purple clad aunties and grandmothers in the refuges. The sisters train these
young women for their yearslong mission. They wed them to their weapons, some
borrowed, some blued, some newly founded, some extracted from ancient Eden .
By the end of spring, the sisters deem them worthy. They march on the
provincial capital, bypassing its townships and outposts. They neither bind
their gender nor reveal it, except perhaps in the ponytails bobbing at their
backs like the pennons of their cause. They do not attack, lay siege or even announce
their intentions. They use the strength and condescension of the garrison
against itself. They infiltrate by night, weak, desperate, unguarded and alone.
By morning, the city kneels at their feet after a mostly bloodless coup. The
sightless eyes of the worst oppressors peer out above the gates. The more
pragmatic get co-opted or conscripted. The sisters know some bide their time
while others await the dice to fully come to rest. They find a place for both within
their Reconquista.
Too few to enforce their claim by steel alone, the sisters
court each new city through a
combination of divine blessings and treachery into relinquishing the chastity
of its gates. They do not use the same ruse twice. In one they foment an internal
uprising through targeted assassination. In another, they bribe the burghers with
promises of free trade or other wiles. In a third, they simply slit the throats
of the watchmen and gatekeepers, and replace them with their own. While not a
preference, they shy away from neither blood nor pain. The Righteous brand them
Lunatics. The sisters turn that name to their advantage. They commission
musicians to compose the Ballad of Diana, the huntress with her bow. They have
it sung in speakeasies and backroom bars until it is whistled and hummed in
back alleys like an anthem. Throughout the lowlands, Diana’s light becomes an
ill omen, an unwarded evil eye. Her sibylline faces become known by different
names. Wolf moon, huntress moon, blood moon, each representing another city
fallen into the sisters orbit through their ever-shifting tactics.
Soon, their reputation alone unlocks the granaries and
armories needed to transform a forgotten res publica into a puebla
empire backed by mountains and the sky. Belatedly, the Righteous awaken to the
threat. They enact a scorched-earth policy, burning their own harvest to starve
out the rebellion. They cobble together confederacies and covenants based on
interlocking Machiavellian interests and self-serving lies. When the sisters
push, they give ground, only to strike back along their well exposed flanks. Vulnerable,
the sisters are forced to retrench until they occupy only their initial three conquests.
The first snow sees them watching warily from behind their walls, sharpening
their weapons, plotting their spring campaign. In the darkness of the new year’s
first new moon, the Righteous send their black balaclava-clad commandos on a lightning
raid against the aunties and infants in the mountain strongholds. The histories
do not record their intent only their execution. Soldiers on leave reacquainting
themselves with their children repulse the raids in eight pueblas
with heavy losses. In the ninth, a slaughter of the innocents of biblical proportions
ensues. Among the martyred, the youngest sister dispatched in desperation to shore
up the square tower’s defense. Her remaining siblings seize on the act as a Righteous
Children’s Crusade. New elegies are commissioned, new requiems are sung.
Grindstones hone fresh grievances until they glint like razors.
By spring, silver fills the treasuries, ploughshares overflow
the forges, raw materials for new, untarnished conquests standing ready to be
transmuted. Donations and bribes, some carried from farmsteads and townships
begging for their protection, other smuggled from fallen cities desperate to be
reclaimed. The sisters convene a war council. They lay out the map and study
the web of interdependencies the Righteous have created. A plan emerges. The
sisters begin seeding provisions throughout the passes and canyons. Their
agents establish contact with prospective allies. The Righteous do not rest
either. In an opening gambit just before the final frost, their provocateurs
seize the weakest of the sisters’ cities from within. In response, its
population rises, armed with castoff weapons and guerilla tactics. When the street
fighting subsides three days later, the sisters have regained control. At the
cost of the middle member of their sorority. A second loss does little to
temper their resolve. Once again they call a conclave. This time, the old, wise
men dare not brick themselves inside. They let the sisters enter. They let the
sisters speak. The second sister’s rhetoric captivates the chamber. This year,
the priests quickly bless their venture. They, too, have suffered loss. Fresh
recruits stream to the mountain strongholds. None of the veteran cadres waiver.
The tiny crosses overlooking the training ground reinforce the price of any
failure.
After the depletions of winter and the destruction of the
bulk of last year’s harvest, the Righteous press for a single, decisive battle.
The sisters plan to give it to them. They gather their green army, backed by
just enough veterans to form a core. The eldest three sisters lead them to the
field, a prize too tempting for the Righteous to ignore. Once the unholy army
marches out to meet them, the pueblas
adopt Fabian tactics in the mountains and high passes, refusing battle while
resupplying from their caches. Overeager, the Righteous pursue them farther and
farther from their base. With the enemy forces fully engaged, the two youngest sisters
lead the bulk of the veteran cadres to seize a keystone city along the
Righteous supply route. Backed by silver from the treasury, the younger pair threaten
to roll up their supply lines through barter, bribes and coercion. With their lines
of communication threatened, the Righteous belatedly turn to secure their territory.
The puebla army sets upon them
from behind. Caught between hammer and anvil, the Righteous army first retreats
then routs, leaving the province empty. One by one, a string of city-states
falls into the sisters’ hands, pearls once connected by a twisted thread of
alliances now deftly severed and unknotted.
For generations, no one dared challenge these women and
their daughters in their pueblas
backed by mountains and the sky. The sisters did not believe in some Righteous
god. They did not believe in fate. They believed that any divinity worth naming
helps those who help themselves, through force of will if necessary. They
believed in the knowledge their mothers and grandmothers preserved. The
knowledge that they could change the world if they set it in their minds.
Their names, carved into the living rock beneath the ruins
of the square tower, still inspire a mixture of fear and awe in everyone who
reads them. Those deeply chiseled names are all that remains on this earth of
the seven sisters once they ascended from their mountains to the sky.
© 2018 Edward P. Morgan III
