Silluka scrabbled against the sliding pit of sand pulling her under the desert. She had no purchase and still gripped the suit with her hand. Her stump windmilled against the sand, trying to find something to grab onto. The sand dug into the tender end.
“In the construct!” Lugopo clung to one of the suit’s legs, tentacles a blur as they pulled on joints. Muola and two other Allwiya were on the other leg, waving tentacles and working just as fast.
Silluka slid over the suit, trying to get her legs inside without losing her hold on it. One of the Allwiya tugged at her foot, pulling it farther in, and she almost jerked away by instinct, but forced herself to keep climbing inside Lugopo’s creation.
She could see the middle of the pit now. Parts of the sled were visible under the sand. The desert Allwiya’s vehicle was under there too, legs curled around it. Occasionally one broke the surface of the sand, an upside-down appendage.
But the sand was draining down, as if there was a pit below them, or the insect vehicle had dug a space out below them. Silluka’s waist was inside the suit now, and the Allwiya were crawling up her body, fastening joints as they went. As soon as her left, whole arm was inside she dug it into the sand, slowing her descent. The suit aided her actions, giving her more power, though there was nothing to grasp. Only the resistance of the slipping sand held her back.
She felt Lugopo’s small tentacles wrap around her stump, guiding it home. She didn’t dare look, concentrating on the growing pit in front of her.
Finally, the last joints closed, and Silluka felt different, energized. The suit was whole again, and the adjustments Lugopo made didn’t seem to affect it for the worse. She faced the wall of sand and moved her stump, focusing her intent on the extension of wood and metal that made up the false hand. The hand responded, dipping beneath the shifting sand so she had two hands slowing her down. Except there was no interior to the right hand. It was an outline of a hand, sturdy, but hollow. The sand passed through it, and it didn’t hold as well as her real hand.
Belly down on the slope, she glanced a look over her left shoulder, looking down the giant funnel of the pit. The hole was bigger around than she was tall, sand rushing into it like warriors committed to battle. She could barely make out the next sled and domed head of the giant Allwiya above the rim of the funnel. Everything else was blue sky.
Lugopo was on her right shoulder, Muola and the other Allwiya riding her back and legs. There was no way to get them out of this pit. The only way was through.
“I’m going in!” she shouted, and the two Allwiya on her back signed something she didn’t catch in response.
“For glory in battle, to crush our enemies!” Lugopo’s tinny voice shouted in her ear.
Silluka pulled her hands free of the sand, turning to slide down the slope. The four Allwiya hung on to her clothing and the structure of the suit.
She screamed. Lugopo screamed. Muola and the other two waved their tentacles.
They fell.
Silluka thudded into a springy mass sooner than she expected. The pit was dark, and not as deep as she had thought.
Then the springy substance moved under her, curling, and she realized she was hanging on one of the vehicle’s segmented legs. She almost let go, until she realized there was nothing else below her.
The leg shivered, but kept its hold on the sled. As her eyes adjusted, she realized it was upside-down, half of its legs pinned to the celling of the cavern they were in, scrabbling for purchase as it grasped the sled. The few conscious Huaca who had been on this sled battled the legs, but couldn’t get to the vehicle itself. From here, Silluka could barely see around the curve of the sled, where more desert Allwiya were climbing up the legs.
No. All the remaining Allwiya were climbing up and around the sled, as if running from…
The insect vehicle lost its hold on the cavern wall and dropped, still holding the sled. She started counting seconds, as a scream ripped from her throat.
This distance was much greater, and Silluka was turned in the air, feeling the vehicle itself rotating somehow, until the sled was underneath it.
They landed with a crash like all the trees in the forest snapping in the blast from a volcano. Silluka would not have held on to the leg but for the suit, and Lugopo and the others desperately hung on to her.
Dust and sand filtered down in the ensuing silence. Then moans and screams drifted to her from the wreckage of the sled. She peered down in the slanted light filtering through the dust from the hole above them.
The sled would never move again. It was broken in multiple places, top side smashed into the cavern floor, the weight of the Allwiya’s vehicle on top of it.
It had been the second sled. The one with the healing center. Cosquella’s father and cousin had been there, along with other injured Huaca. She tried to glimpse any survivors, as desert Allwiya swarmed down the legs, most going to the wreckage. There were few figures moving.
The insect vehicle was still whole, and struggling to its many feet.
“I’m getting down!” she shouted, and dropped from the leg, to fall more than her height to the floor. Fortunately it was mostly fallen sand, and she landed ankle deep, the suit letting her position perfectly, bending her knees, and absorbing the energy. Lugopo stayed on her shoulder, but the other three Allwiya hopped down, scuttling together to help the Huaca.
Desert Allwiya were already back on board the vehicle with prizes clutched in their tentacles. She saw bags of rice and maize, tools, and even splinters of the sled disappearing up into the insect vehicle. It stamped across the sled, stabbing through the wood with pointed legs, burying the broken planks under the sand. It placed its frontmost legs against the wall, digging in. The cave they were in was barely wider than the vehicle was long.
It was starting to climb.
She tried to visually match up the pieces of buried and crushed sled. Surely no one could still be alive under there. Only a few Huaca had gotten out, and they were fighting with the Allwiya who still swarmed the wreckage.
“Lugopo, can that vehicle get out of here?” She ran alongside it. She didn’t know how she’d lived without this suit before. Every step was precisely placed, sturdy even in the dark among slithering sand.
“Such majesty! A beauty of Crawling Dark of Squirming’s whispered secrets. Such a grand creation will not be stopped by a simple cave!”
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“So that’s a yes.” Silluka said. Once again, she looked between the sled and the vehicle. To the surely already dead, and the potential for more deaths. Cosquella’s family. Sounds of fighting drifted down from above. If this insectoid thing got free of the pit, it would join the others again and kill even more of the villagers.
The strong survived in the Huaca. She sent a quick prayer to the Tiyus, Tiyas, and Tiyes that the few left fighting the Allwiya would prevail, and dig out survivors.
“I have to stop it from getting out.”
“Us against the might of Crawling Dark of Squirming’s ever-veering thoughts? Certainly we are fated to die most horribly!” They tapped their circlet. “But yes, agree, we should definitely stop it.”
When the desert Allwiya first attacked, Silluka hadn’t had time to think of a chayu, or react in any way. Now, she was back in the suit, and had several moments, running alongside the thing, to plan what she would do.
She planted her feet in Strength stance, and began the moves of Tortoise’s Heavy Foot. Here beneath the Earth, she was already in Tiyu Tiksimuyu’s realm.
She had never summoned the ampuka with this chayu before, but her brother had performed it many times. The moves came easily to her now, after days of constant practice. Her focus was sharp as a spear. One foot planted, then the other. Her hips tucked under, shoulders rounding in. The false arm of the suit moved to her intent, matching what she did with her left arm.
The insect vehicle was halfway up the wall when Silluka brought both arms together in front of her, elbows nearly touching, shoulders pressed in as if resisting a great force. She shifted foot to foot, lowering her stance every time. She couldn’t think of the sled or the people under it.
The ampuka bloomed around her and Uncle Earth’s power flowed through her frame. She grasped a leg with two hands—her real one and the one made of wood and metal, augmented by the Uncle’s strength—and pried it off the wall with a shriek of metal. It was cold to the touch, but not quite right, as if metal had been given the properties of squishy wood.
She shook her hand out, grabbed another, and did the same thing, then a third.
The insect vehicle wavered, slipping part of the way down the wall. There were Allwiya above, pointing tentacles at her.
The next leg jerked out of her grip as the vehicle made a low circle across the base of the wall, flowing around her until it faced her. There were three Allwiya sitting in what would have been the head, pulling levers.
It stamped toward her, each razor-sharp point of a leg trying to stab through her. Silluka danced back, feet solid in the sand, the suit stabilizing her. She dodged, gauging its speed, then pounced, grabbing and wrenching.
A leg twisted off in her hands, as big around as she was, and she brought it above her head to smash into the thing’s control center, flattening Allwiya.
“Your enemies are flattened by your glorious strength!” Lugopo crowed.
Then another leg swung across, straight into her.
She flew back, impacting the wall, and something crunched behind her. When she stood, there was a lack of pressure on her back. She wasn’t in a perfect position anymore. Silluka had been lazy, relying on the suit to correct her. She straightened into good posture.
“Lugopo, the suit!” She pointed to her back with her real hand and Lugopo swarmed down her shoulder, mumbling curses and reconnecting broken pieces.
Silluka stomped back to the vehicle, Tortoise’s Heavy Foot making every step a powerful attack. She grabbed the next leg as it swung to her, and twisted that off, too. New desert Allwiya were in the head of the thing, waving tentacles at each other.
She swung the leg like a mace, but the vehicle brought up an arm to stop the strike, and the impact jarred through her body.
“Fixed, for now…” Lugopo crawled back to her shoulder. “Try not to be crushed against the wall again.”
“I’ll do what I can,” she ground out. The vehicle was down several legs, from the ones she’d torn off and others she’d hit. A few Huaca were still standing on the remains of the sled, fighting Allwiya, but there were more down than up.
They could do it, if they were lucky. They could keep this thing from climbing back up, let the warriors on the other sleds beat away the attack. She’d never felt this powerful before.
She raised her left arm as a leg swung for her, trusting in Uncle Earth’s strength to keep her whole. She was pushed back across the sand by the impact, wood crunching around her arm. Lugopo swung down to repair it, even as she turned her right side and stump to the vehicle. Her whole arm was occupied until Lugopo fixed the suit. She’d have to rely on her intent to control the construct arm.
She stopped another swinging leg with that arm, tensing the end of her stump and forcing her intent into the suit. The construct hand clenched the leg hard, then twisted.
And shattered into a thousand pieces as the leg jerked away.
Silluka stumbled back as the tip of a leg stabbed down where she had been.
“No no no!” Lugopo swung across her body to her stump, six of his tentacles roving over the destruction.
“Is the left hand fixed?” Silluka asked. She was used to one hand and a stump. She could still take this thing.
“Fixed, but integrity is not good. Cannot take many more hits. Must listen to the whispers of Manylegs of Reaching to repair it later.”
The vehicle surged forward. Desert Allwiya were scuttling back from the sled, bloody figures on the ground behind them. Were there any villagers left standing? She couldn’t spare the time for a look. The Allwiya clambered on the insect vehicle as it pressed her against the wall. Tortoise’s Heavy Foot was fading already, hastened by her body changing shape since she performed the chayu with two hands.
The next blow she barely blocked, and barely managed to avoid slamming against the wall only by digging her feet in the sand. Even though the desert Allwiya were crazed by their god, the ones driving this vehicle doubtless understood how Lugopo had crafted the suit now, and what its weaknesses were. She didn’t have much time.
The vehicle was moving faster now, its drivers more certain. She parried strikes and slipped out of the way of spikes meant to skewer her. She could feel the suit failing. It no longer kept each step perfect, and she twisted her knee stepping out of the way, stumbling to the sand.
A leg raised, its gleaming spike aimed right at her head.
And a blazing ball of glowing fury bashed the leg into the sand.
Her brother unfolded in front of her, seeming even bigger than usual. He gripped the leg he’d fallen on, and with a growl, stabbed the spike at the end into the guts of the vehicle.
Silluka scrambled to the side, not questioning how Ichu was here. Her brother had always protected her. But now she could fight with him.
She yelled, and Lugopo’s circlet translated their waving tentacles into a roar of fury.
Running around to the other side of the vehicle, she attacked the legs here with one hand, her stump, and the remains of Tortoise’s Heavy Foot.
Ichu roared like a jakua and slashed, fingers ripping through the strange, spongy metal of the insect legs. Her eyes passed across his, away, and then back. Were they…glowing?
It must have been the light. She recognized the fever of his movements as Jakua’s Fury, a particularly complex chayu that turned the practitioner into a whirling ball of claws and teeth, at the expense of personal safety.
That meant she needed to do her part.
She wrestled with another leg, pulling the vehicle off balance and spilling Allwiya off, while Ichu raked gashes across the main body. Muola and the other sane Allwiya appeared from somewhere, tentacles curled around splinters of wood, hunting the desert Allwiya.
Together, she and Ichu slowly drove the insect-like vehicle back to the wreckage of the sled, tearing pieces from it. It was missing half its legs, staggering, leaking a vile-smelling ooze from deep wounds. She saw no other villagers fighting any longer, and there was nowhere else to push the vehicle. It took up most of the cavern. This was the place farthest away from the walls.
Silluka jerked another leg away, her stump propped on one side, bits of wood and steel dangling off it. The vehicle slipped on ooze and collapsed to the floor. Silluka was surprised to find it only came up to her waist. Most of its height was from the legs.
“Stab it together!” She shouted. Ichu looked straight at her for once, over the insect, and she wasn’t sure he recognized her. His eyes were as red as if he’d rubbed itching weed in them. then he seemed to gather himself, and snatched up the last leg he’d torn off.
Together, they stabbed the spike ends through the body, pinning it to the sled. She winced at the impact, but there was no way anyone else was alive down there. This was a tomb for the Huaca and the Allwiya both.
The insect vehicle whirred and ground brokenly, before sighing to a halt.
There was quiet for a moment, before Lugopo leapt off her shoulder with a screech, brandishing a sliver of wood they’d gotten somewhere. They landed on top of a particularly large desert Allwiya, stabbing down into their main body.
The Allwiya flopped like a dead fish.
Silluka took in a deep breath and let it out. The only sound was the steady hissing of sand falling into the underground chamber.
“You got here just in time,” she told Ichu, and only then got a good look at him. He was swaying on his feet.
“Anything. To protect—”
Ichu slumped to the ground, unconscious.