“Great plans have finally come to fruition! We have devised a new construct for you, after weeks of inspiration from Crawling dark of squirming. Other Allwiya have helped in this devious plan. Hard to build on moving, shaking sleds. Measurements are not precise, but will certainly cause death and destruction!” Lugopo swung to Silluka’s stump, their tentacles feeling all around it. They had come to her shortly after Akamu finally let her go, shaking from exertion and completely unable to connect with the ampuka or the core any longer.

Silluka and Cosquella had joined Akamu and Ichu early that day for the morning ritual, looking over the sand dunes they now slid across, the jakua padding through the hot sand. The morning ritual had then turned into another extended practice. She had absorbed a little more power from the core, and Akamu had pronounced it “adequate” for the day. He’d made her promise to work with him every day the stone warriors traveled with them.

But as much as she’d improved, Akamu said it was still not enough to start working with storing chayus. Ichu’s chayus were less effective, and he was barely able to contain the power. It shone out in a bright aura around him that faded over a short time. Cosquella was the worst, and even confused Akamu. No matter what precision or intent she used, she couldn’t connect with the core, though she had more endurance for the chayus than even Ichu. She’d barely broken a sweat, when Silluka was exhausted. When Lugopo asked her to come to the side of the second sled where the Allwiya congregated, Cosquella had made her excuses to visit her father again, on the same sled. He still hadn’t awoken.

“A construct?” Silluka’s mind went back to the village, in Lugopo’s cramped shop. They had made all sorts of measurements on her, talking about the exact positioning of the chayus. She had forgotten about it completely, with the turtlemen driving them from the coast.

“Amplification of great powers! Think how you may crush your enemies!” They tapped the circlet. “Ahem, that is, how much more exactly you will be able to perform the chayus.”

“Would it help with Akamu’s lessons?” she asked. Lugopo swung around her stump, three tentacles feeling the little nubbin she used to grasp things.

“Perhaps? Certainly! If exactness is a measure of success that would be helpful.”

“What exactly is this construct?” Silluka asked.

Lugopo tugged on her arm, though since they were also sitting her arm, it didn’t mean a lot. “This way, inside the valiant camp of Allwiya! I have more minions now, to aid my great weapons of destruction”—tap—“that is, instruments of torture,”—tap—“of science!”

Fortunately, Silluka was barely bothered by the land shaking around them as she made her way on rubbery legs inside a nest of what looked like discarded junk. The shaking stopped and started with no warning, sometimes with entire dunes shifting or collapsing, but she felt as if her legs had learned how to compensate. Now she simply wanted to sit down.

Once past the piles of debris she got there, she was confronted with a person-sized outline of wood and metal slivers. Several other Allwiya peeked out from behind collections of spare parts and garbage. She thought she saw Muola with the others, and gave the sign for “hello,” one of the few she’d learned.

“What is this?”

Lugopo swung away from her stump and onto the construction. “See here! It is adaptable for the strange, lumpy, hard, body you have. So rigid in some ways, so squishy in others.” They passed a tentacle over their own squishy green and blue body, then moved a lever. It looked like the collection of parts waved. “This will constrain to the optimal paths for chayu!”

“And…how does it do that?” Silluka tried to lead the Allwiya through the logical steps they sometimes skipped over. The thing trembled as another quake went through the shaking domain. Ahead, the jakuas pulling the sled stumbled to the right. They hadn’t figured out how to compensate for the shaking yet.

Lugopo dangled between metal strips, then climbed into the middle of the outline. “It is worn! Like battle armor for Huaca or defensive bubble for Allwiya. Even like jeweled armor of the stone and storm warriors.” They snuggled between hard wooden dowels. “So comfy!”

Silluka put her hand on her hip. She was tired and sweaty. “You want me to wear this, and you think it will make my chayu better?”

“Yes, yes, put it on now. We will adjust.” Lugopo motioned, and five other Allwiya, Muola included, scuttled forward, signing to each other. Silluka picked up a few words, but she’d had little time to learn their language while they crossed the island and she trained with Elder Quilqi and Akamu.

Tentacles wrapped around bars and poles, pulling and pushing in arcane manners until the person-shaped outline split into two.

“Yes! here, here!” Lugopo directed, beckoning Silluka closer. She cautiously approached, reaching her hand inside the form. One foot inside, then the other. Lugopo retreated from her has she did,

It…fit. It was a very strange feeling, but Lugopo was right. It was almost…comfy. The wood and metal pressed against the lines of muscle in her legs and arms, bending where her joints bent, holding her like a comforting hug.

“There’s an extra hand,” Silluka observed, slipping her stump into the right “sleeve” of the construct. It extended to the same length as her other arm.

“Yes, to model the ideal form of the chayu,” Lugopo said, swinging around the form and tightening or loosening connections. “Will let you complete the physical form with two-handed motion even while your intent summons destruction from the gods!”

They were busy with all eight tentacles and didn’t bother to tap their translation circlet, but Silluka wondered how apt their words were. The power flowing through her when she performed Flying Quirra had been too much to handle safely, more than even that of the morning ritual. What would this let her do? Would it even matter, with Elder Quilqi’s teaching of intent? But Akamu had admitted injured bodycasters couldn’t cast as well as those who weren’t. Maybe the same applied to those with differences of birth.

The Allwiya finished strapping the construction to her and scrabbled down the sides like leaves falling from a tree. Silluka made an exploratory move with her stump.

She couldn’t keep calling it “construct.” Was it a mechanism? Armor? A suit? She settled on “suit.”

The suit moved with her, both restraining and accentuating her movement. She had merely lifted her stump, but the outlines of an arm, hand, and fingers that weren’t there unfolded. The outlines of fingers flexed open, as she moved her stump slightly.

“Amazing,” Silluka breathed. It was as if she had a hand. She imagined closing the fingers in and the suit responded, the fingers flexing inward.

“How does it do that?”

Lugopo swung back up on her shoulder, using the metal and wood as ladder rungs. “Your muscles know how to open your bony tentacles, even if you don’t have them. Crawling Dark of Squirming breathes knowledge into our brains! Elder Quilqi spoke of intent. This is similar, maybe?” Looking closely, Silluka saw the white and black-dotted aura shining around them. Were they communing with their strange gods right now?

She shivered, and the suit moved around her, both dampening and accentuating her movement. It was hooked around both her feet and she moved to a Dexterity stance. There was pressure against her knee and she automatically shifted slightly, her eyes widening. Her balance felt better. It was the same way Ichu always corrected her.

Silluka moved to a Strength stance, and shifted again in response to a slight discomfort at her hip.

Without a word she settled into the first moves of Quirra Hides His Nuts, in Reflex stance. Lugopo hopped down to watch. The suit pushed her subtly, correcting tiny things she would never have felt. The empty right hand unfolded like her left, real hand did. She saw the whole chayu from her own perspective, for the first time. Tears stung her eyes, but she blinked them away. Even the shaking of earth was dissipated in the suit. She barely felt the latest tremor starting.

The ampuka grew within her as she moved the grasping and holding motions of the chayu, mimicking the quirra as he went about collecting his nuts. From one Reflex stance to another, she moved in perfect balance, completely smooth, one flesh hand and one of wood and metal making the quirra’s motions.

She planted the final movement, hands—real and constructed—curling, weight back, head up. The ampuka bloomed around her and for the first time, she felt what the chayu could do. This was not just intent, but perfection of form, too! She was as spry as the quirra, balanced and full of energy. She could move faster than the eye could see.

scooping Lugopo up before they could protest, she effortlessly made a set of holds with her arms and hands as he swung around her. He was trying to get to her shoulder, but for once she was ahead of the tiny Allwiya. She could move her limbs faster than Lugopo could swing between them, making an endless stair for them to climb.

Silluka laughed, springing to the narrow vertical slat attached to the side of the sled originally to keep the water out, but which now held back endless sand. She stood on one foot, spun in a circle, then switched feet, all while keeping Lugopo in a never-ended climb.

She only stopped when she noticed villagers watching her with interest, and behind them, Cosquella approaching from the healing center.

As the other woman grew closer, eyes large, Silluka hopped down, with the suit accentuating her movements perfectly. She felt poised like she never had before. She had always accommodated for her stump. There was a slight difference in her weight and balance, side to side, which she’d never really noticed. This suit somehow felt heavier on that side, just enough to compensate. It made her movements…not better, but different.

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“What is that?” Cosquella whispered—for her, still fairly loud—as she ran a hand down the metal and wood structured around Silluka.

“The Allwiya made it.” Lugopo had climbed to her shoulder again and she turned her head to him. “Can you make another? Can you make it fit her? I want to show her how it works.”

Lugopo rubbed the lower side of their head in an approximation of a human thinking. “Design is only for your body. Personal destruction only! Was crafted from measurement taken in the village. Now you want to make the armature modular, to fit multiple bodies?” They sounded put out.

“I’m…I’m sorry.” Silluka slumped. I didn’t know you’d put so much time into it. It’s just for me? Never mind then, I’ll—”

Lugopo snapped two tentacles together. Silluka didn’t know they could do that. “This challenge is worthy of Manylegs of Reaching. Out, out. The Allwiya bow to your ingenuity.”

Within moments, the suit was crawling with Allwiya, tentacles plucking at her clothing, her skin, and the suit itself.

“Now step out,” Lugopo commanded, and Silluka took one step. The whole thing crumpled into a pile behind her, and she couldn’t hold back a gasp.

“Did I break it?” She needed to use that suit again. It was the perfection of chayu.

Lugopo waved three tentacles at her. “Later. Will be ready then. Go talk to tall muscly girl.”

Silluka moved a ways off with Cosquella, until Lugopo stopped wiggling their tentacles at her. They dove back into a squirming mass of Allwiya, clambering around the suit and signing vigorously. The white and black of their aura grew as they plucked at the wood and metal.

“You were glowing with the ampuka. You still are,” Cosquella squinted in the hot light of the sun reflecting off dunes as the other villagers went back to their work. There were barely any clouds here—a big change from the nearly always overcast coast.

She looked down to see a subtle orange glow about her. The chayu was one of Aunt Harvest’s.

“You must try this, once the Allwiya fix it for you. It makes your movements…perfect. It was like floating through a chayu.” Silluka tried to find a better way to describe, then shook her head at the impossibility.

“But Elder Quilqi said the intent was what mattered, didn’t she?” Cosquella frowned. “Not that I can do either, it seems like.”

“Yes, intent works, but so does doing the chayu perfectly,” Silluka reminded her. “This will just make it easier to learn. Maybe then you can connect to the core. You’ll see, once they fix it.”

Cosquella cast an uncertain look at the suit. “It seems pretty flimsy, it does. Will it hold up to being in a fight?”

“I…don’t know,” Silluka admitted. It was flimsy, using her body for reinforcement. She’d felt the empty hand at the end of her stump wavering as she performed Quirra Hides His Nuts. Trust Cosquella to think of battle. “I think they just finished making it. Knowing Allwiya, they’ll improve it soon.”

She was trying to think of something more convincing when a warbling shout went up from the lead sled. Both their heads whipped around to see one of the Huaca standing at the fore of the sled, the glow of ampuka surrounding him, a silhouette against the stretch of sand rising in front of the sleds.

“Coyote’s Howl,” Silluka said.

“Up there.” Cosquella pointed to a dune, rising to their left, far enough so Silluka could barely make out the line of creations on its crest. There was something waving, like hot air, but it was more solid. Tentacles. Long tentacles.

“Crazed Allwiya!” she said, just as the mass of things began rolling down the hill toward them. She ran back to Lugopo. “Can I get back in the suit?”

“You see our mighty cousins!” Three of Lugopo’s tentacles signed, and the circlet translated while they hastily adjusted metal and wood. “They are ever guided by Whirling Abyss. They have chosen their timing well. We must complete the modifications now. Too late to turn back!”

Lugopo and the Allwiya continued to remove parts of the suit, reconfiguring and crafting. One scuttled over to Cosquella and measured her ankles.

“I guess this fight will be settled by our might, it will,” Cosquella said. “The crazed Allwiya at the farm was unpredictable, and more powerful than expected.”

“At least Akamu and the stone warriors are still with us.” Akamu had said they would travel with them for this last day, though she sensed even this much was a stretch. Their glowing armor was already visible, near the front of the lead sled.

“Lugopo—how do we fight these crazed desert Allwiya?” Silluka shouted. The little Allwiya poked their head up from the mass of wood and metal.

“If they choose to fight, they must be destroyed! They will not rest. Grind them to dust and Crawling Dark of Squirming take their creations down to the pit!” They went back to rearranging sticks, their tentacles a blur.

“Yes, but that doesn’t actually help me any,” Silluka whispered to Cosquella.

The big girl slammed one fist into her other, open palm. “We hit them, yes? Until they stop moving.”

“Good plan,” Silluka said.

They ran to where the rest of the Huaca was perched around the front of the sleds. The jakuas had stopped pulling and their handlers had taken their harnesses off, ready to fight. They snarled and yowled as the handlers performed Fighting Beast.

Silluka found Ichu near the front, with Akamu. He was halfway through Jakua’s Claws, though Akamu simply stood watching, amber armor glowing. Tamaya and Waskar were nearby, as were many of the elders. Elder Quilqi was pointing out places on the sleds and villagers were running there.

The desert Allwiya were eerily silent, save for the hissing sounds as five great mechanisms slid, rolled, and crawled down the slope of the massive dune toward them. One was a wheel with paddles, bigger than a sled, tilling the sand as it moved. A second had twenty or more segmented legs, like an insect, and they stabbed the sand quicker than thought. A third was a spinning disc, moving too fast to see detail, a fourth was a sled, almost as big as one of theirs, with canvas stretched across the top, and the last…was an Allwiya.

Those were the tentacles she had seen waving above the dune’s top. It was a living Allwiva, larger than ten of the Huaca, with a cage of metal around its body. Its legs, big around as trees, and almost as long, stuck out of larger openings in the cage. Smaller Allwiya scampered around it, pouring water on things, tightening joints, and waving their tentacles at the sleds.

They had moments before the desert Allwiya would be in range. Something whistled, and an arrow plunked into the sand ten paces in front of the sled.

“Get back!” Akamu ordered, and the Huaca moved into the shelter on the lead sled. The stone warriors jumped down to the ground. They gestured as a group and a tide of sand thrust up and into the desert Allwiya’s path, like a wave of the sea coming to crash on the coast.

The wheel with paddles bogged down in the tide of sand, tipping onto its side and spilling Allwiya out. These were thankfully normal-sized ones. The spinning wheel hit the wave as well, slowing to a halt, revealing Allwiya who stumbled drunkenly around its circumference. Had they been spinning with the wheel? They were starting to make Lugopo look reasonable.

The sled crested the sand, but was slowed, while the last two, the one with segmented legs and the giant Allwiya, crawled over the stone warrior’s attack with little effort.

And then the fight came to them.

A tentacle like a tree trunk slammed down on the sled, scattering Huaca. Silluka dived backwards, turning the motion into a roll over her stump, tucked into her body. Cosquella merely stepped out of the way, then hacked at the limb with a hatchet she’d produced from somewhere. Muscles bunched under her shirt each time she raised her arms for another chop. A bellow, low enough Silluka felt it rather than heard it, made the entire sled vibrate.

She saw Ichu, hands like claws, swipe at an Allwiya that jumped at his face, slinging it to smash against the side of the sled. Then she looked down at a spike of pain in her leg to find a yellow Allwiya, twice as big as Lugopo, with tentacles wrapped around her foot, hard beak buried in her ankle.

“Get off!” Silluka flailed, all thoughts of chayu leaving her head, and shook her leg vigorously. The thing stayed clamped on and she pried a splinter from the sled’s rail to stab into the boneless thing.

Ichor spurted on her face and all its tentacles spasmed, flinging the splinter away from her. It writhed on the floor and Silluka kicked it away.

But there was no time. She couldn’t summon her intent, or even think of a chayu to try. The Allwiya were everywhere, crawling over the railings, breaking into supplies, making things.

This wasn’t like the turtlemen’s attack—slow, steady, and unavoidable. This was vicious and chaotic. She couldn’t tell how many of the tentacled creatures were on the sleds, but everywhere she looked, there was another. She shuffled back as one walked toward her on five legs, another three raised in the air. There was a lens driven into one of its eyes, and it blinked and flashed in the sun around the shriveled remains of the eyeball. Silluka stabbed at it with the spike of wood, looking around for something larger.

There. A tent spike in a collection of supplies. She dropped the spike and snatched it up, pinning the Allwiya down to the deck through its body, grimacing at the squelch of fluids. She wasn’t squeamish—she had grown up on the farm where wringing a chicken’s neck was the way to get dinner—but this was different. These were thinking beings, but she had no doubt they would reduce her to ragged flesh if she didn’t stop them.

A change in the air made her look up just in time to step out of the way. A tree-trunk arm of the massive Allwiya slammed down on the sled beside here, throwing her off her feet and squashing several smaller of its kin beneath it. Cosquella and Ichu were both there, along with other villagers with axes and hatchets, trying to hit the same spot twice on the arm. It was covered with oozing sores, not all of which were from the weapons.

Another Allwiya flew at her head, tentacles outstretched, and Silluka pivoted on the balls of her feet, leaning back as she twisted the tent stake in an arc with her hand, stump coming up to help guide the path. The stake impacted the flying Allwiya with a satisfying thud and it flew off the side of the sled.

Where were the stone warriors? She scanned the battlefield until she saw them, working as a team to build a barrier of sand in front of the sled, wheel, and disc to keep the other Allwiya back. This attack was from only two of their vehicles? Granted, one vehicle was an Allwiya that looked like it had been dosed with fertilizer. Glints of amber shone around whirling limbs as the stone warriors kept the rest of the Allwiya back.

A tentacle pulled at her leg and she stabbed down with the stake, only barely managing to stop as she recognized Lugopo’s tiny green and blue body.

“Such destruction! My people truly have the blessing of Crawling Dark of Squirming, the whispers loud in their minds!” They crawled up Silluka’s linen trousers and she tamped down a shudder. She would not feel their tentacles the same way after this.

“The construct. We have altered it so it may fit you or the large girl, with adjustment.” Lugopo pulled at her arm, gesturing away from the fight.

Would the suit help? Was she helping at all? Cosquella at least could use a hatchet. Silluka felt useless.

“Take me to it,” she said. Maybe then she would remember a chayu.

She ran across the sled, dodging crawling desert Allwiya when she could, stabbing when she couldn’t. Lugopo seemed to have no resistance to slaughtering their species, even pointing out weak spots.

“There! Where the tentacle connects with the main body. Sever the link!”

They wiggled their tentacles when Silluka’s strike went in.

“Through the eye! The eye!”

She grimaced, and stabbed, turning her head as she felt the stake hit. On her shoulder, Lugopo glowed white with black spots, listening to their gods.

“The construct. There!” They pointed to the only other Allwiya who weren’t attacking, cowering behind stacks of supplies. “Use it to grind your enemies under your tentacles!”

It was at the edge of the second sled, but as she reached it, segmented legs burst from the sand, stabbing upward like the prongs of a hunter’s snare. She couldn’t comprehend it at first. They were coming up out of the sand. They looked like the same ones as on the Allwiya vehicle, but where was the body?

Then they wrapped around the edge of the sled, arcing over her head, and she understood. The insect-like vehicle was underneath the sled. She hadn’t appreciated how long each leg was, before now.

“Off the sled!” Lugopo shrieked, and Silluka snatched at the suit as she slid past, diving over the edge of the sled. Allwiya tumbled past her, several clinging to the suit.

She rolled to a halt, spitting sand from her mouth. The tent stake was gone, dropped so she could grab the suit with her hand, her stump bracing against her fall.

It didn’t seem to be damaged, and Lugopo and Muola were poring over the wood and metal to check.

In front of her, the segmented legs curled over the second sled in a deadly hug, trapping Huaca, supplies, food, and the entire healing center. The contraption pulled the whole thing beneath the sand with such speed it created a vortex, pulling Silluka in.