The Huaca approached faster than Silluka had ever experienced. She was connected to the ampuka! Power from the realm of the gods and goddesses flowed through her, lending her strength. She would have laughed for joy, but the turtle-like monstrosity was still following them—catching up with them.

Silluka was falling behind. Ichu was already lending her so much strength. Was this what it felt like to be him, instead of her with her small frame and weak muscles?

“We can still make it to the Huaca before it catches up,” Ichu called to her. Silluka risked another look back and saw it raise another of those strange glowing vials to its beaky mouth. It ran faster.

“I’m not sure we can,” she shouted back. Ichu followed her gaze, then put his head down, legs churning even harder. Silluka felt his speed bleed into her, Flock Of Starlings not only giving them enhanced speed, but equalizing it between them.

Then Ichu began doing another chayu while they ran, all arm, hand, and…head movements? She had never appreciated how powerful her brother was, to hold so much of the Aunts, Uncles, and Entles’ energy. She didn’t recognize this one either.

When he was done, the ampuka glowed fiercer around Ichu’s throat and he raised his head and howled.

It echoed off the trees, bushes, and rocks. Silluka could practically see the wind of it rushing ahead of them to the Huaca. There were words in it, of foes and fighting, but she could barely make it out. The extra glow around his throat was extinguished with the one cry.

“Coyote’s Howl,” Ichu explained when he saw her looking. “The others will be ready.”

Silluka couldn’t help but look back again. The red eyes of the turtleman bored into her. It had covered half again their distance.

“We’re not going to make it,” she said again.

“We’ll make it,” Ichu growled. “Just keep running and stop looking back.”

Silluka put her head down and ran, legs pumping faster than she thought possible. A shiver went down her spine at the thought of talons reaching for her back.

* * *

They bowled through a line of Huaca, ready as Ichu promised they would be. Silluka stumbled to a halt against a building, panting, and bent over her legs. Someone passed her a flask of water and she saw it was Hufi, already glowing with the ampuka and looking concerned. His patrol was lined up beside him, Meaty Boy—she should really learn his name—nervously glancing between the pretty tall girl and the shorter one, who was busy with a chayu. The boy with the swoop of hair was kneading his hands together as if he would pop his fingers off.

She turned at a call like granite being broken. The turtleman was standing twenty paces away, beaky head inclined, shouting at them. It was issuing a challenge, that was obvious, but what it was, she couldn’t tell.

Now she had a moment to observe the turtleman, she saw he—definitely a he, or at least presenting very masculine—was taller than any of the Huaca, arms thick with ropy muscle, and back curved. He didn’t have a shell as such, but what looked like spiny plates grew from the back of his neck and upper arms, all the way down to his waist. They grated almost as loud as his speech, rubbing together as he shifted and gestured. That was why he’d looked like a spiky seed when he landed. He must have curled into a ball and the plates protected his descent. Was that how he got through the Wall of Storms? What about the storm warriors? Had he defeated them?

“What does he want?” Hufi asked her.

Silluka shrugged. “To fight. He already beat Ichu. We had to run all the way here.”

“He beat Ichu?” Hufi paled and looked back to the elders, arranged behind them. As usual, when facing a threat, the younger, stronger bodycasters were in front as a first line of defense, while the older, more experienced Huaca stood in back, planning and crafting longer chayus.

Where was her brother? She glanced around, seeing him talking to several other bodycasters of his generation—friends he knew in the village. He winced as she watched him, one hand going to his ribs. He hid injury well, but even with his connection to the gods, the turtleman had blasted through his defenses quickly. Too quickly. This was a powerful foe.

Another shout made her whip back around to the turtleman. He had stepped forward, craggy arm raised, bellowing toward the gathered villagers. His eyes glowed with an unearthly red, and he raised another vial of liquid, downing it with a flourish, then staring defiantly. There was a gasp from the crowd as the glow intensified and shifted to a dark, bruised purple. He grinned savagely at the response, then made an obvious “come here” gesture.

Murmurs grew as the villagers spoke amongst themselves, wondering who would accept the challenge.

“We’ll take you on!” came a shout next to her, and Silluka saw Hufi step forward, his patrol flanking him on both sides. Meaty Boy looked uncertain, but the others were just as stoic as Hufi. She could almost admire them, though had cost her a chance at being a citizen.

No. Be fair. That was all her fault. She stood straighter. “Good luck,” she said to Hufi’s back. He acknowledged with a wave, as his patrol ran forward. Maybe five could overpower him where one wasn’t enough. If she had any skill at all with bodycasting, she would have helped, but she was nothing. An undesirable.

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The turtleman roared in triumph, stamping his armored feet, eyes blazing. He squatted, lowing his center of mass, and rolling his shoulders forward. The plates on his back clattered together, sticking up over his shoulders. He met the rushing bodycasters with a growl, instantly throwing the shorter girl and the boy with the swoop of hair off to the sides. They slid and rolled, far out of the action. Tall Girl, Meaty Boy, and Hufi were all glowing with the ampuka. When had they had time to perform a chayu? Silluka would learn to summon that feeling. Now she had felt it, first under Elder Quilqi’s tutelage and again, running with Ichu, she kicked herself for not trying harder, even with her stump.

If anyone had told her missing an arm was not an impediment to connecting with the ampuka, she would have poured herself into application. But all her life, she’d expected to be an undesirable. Only those at the peak of physical strength, with fine muscular control, could be bodycasters. If that wasn’t so, what else were the village elders wrong about?

Hufi and the other two grappled the turtleman, who looked momentarily uncertain, muscles on his arms straining. Why wasn’t he moving like he had when fighting Ichu?

Ah, she saw now. They must have performed Root Grows Around The Rock. They had constrained him already. Silluka could still feel how the chayu kept her from moving, tying her to her captors.

But the turtleman growled, eyeing the fourth and fifth members of Hufi’s patrol, who were up again and running back toward the group. The purple of his eyes spilled over, leaking strange light down his chiseled cheeks, and the turtleman threw his arms wide with a scream.

Hufi and the other two fell back. Meaty Boy was holding his wrist, shoulders curled forward around it. What had happened?

Silluka was distracted for a moment by a shout from the elders. They were all in Dexterity stance, bent low, arms moving almost too fast to see. Elder Papaki led them, though Elder Quilqi was not around. They began to interweave their steps, crossing over and through each other so Silluka could hardly tell how many of them there were. At the same moment, she felt the ampuka for the third time in her life. Nothing for over seventeen years, and then three times in less than a full day. What had she been doing with her life until now? Did it take catastrophe to the Huaca to get her to act? Had secrets been lost when her grandparents fled with the rest of the Huaca inland from the coast-turned-mountains?

A shout of pain divided her attention yet again. The turtleman held Tall Girl by the throat and she clawed at his thick skin to no effect. Silluka had taken three steps forward before she realized what she was doing. She’d have no chance against that thing. She wouldn’t have even done that two days ago. What was she thinking?

The turtleman threw Tall Girl even farther than he’d punched Ichu and she landed on the ground with a sickening thud, laying still. Silluka was two steps into running to help, but faster than she thought possible, the turtleman grabbed Hufi, still glowing with the ampuka, and raised him above his head.

“No!” Ichu had one hand forward, even as the other held his ribs, obviously injured. He had seen what Silluka hadn’t, or not soon enough. The turtleman brought Hufi down like a falling rock, raising his knee at the same time, and it was only then Silluka saw the bony spikes emerging from his legs.

Hufi jerked and gurgled as the spikes penetrated his back with a sickening crunch. The turtleman threw him away like a leg of meat, gnawed to the marrow. Silluka cried out despite herself, her hand reaching as if to stop what was happening. She’d known Hufi since they were children, playing the gutters. Before her parents died. Before Hufi became a citizen.

The strong survived in the Huaca. The looming threat was even more important than mourning Hufi.

Power erupted through Silluka, and she could barely think, let alone mourn. She could feel the elders behind her, still weaving together, like a mass of small animals, bristling with teeth and claws, making themselves look bigger.

She could feel the others around her, too, and they all stepped forward as a group, the whole village of one mind, linked together in body and action. It was a powerful chayu tied to Tiye Kwirpuyay—Aunt Magic. She saw now what she should have seen before. Hufi and his patrol had given the elders enough time to perform the chayu. If she had tried to relate to the other villagers before now, she might have known how the village’s defenses worked. The strong protected, but only the strongest survived.

The turtleman saw them approach, his eye dimmed to only a red glow again, head moving between groups of the Huaca. They were all advancing, surrounding the invader. Silluka was ready to crawl over the turtleman, doing what little she could to take him down. By herself, she was weak, but with the others, she was one bucket of water in a wave of grasping fingers, bared teeth, and strong legs.

They surrounded the turtleman, grabbing at his limbs. He tried to get another vial to his lips, but three villagers held onto his wrist. Another ten fell to the ground, tangling his ankles so he couldn’t move. Silluka found herself by his other side, and grabbed the thick fiber straps wrapping his body. She tangled her stump around his arm, tying him in place. Ichu was in here somewhere, finding another handhold to slow the monster down.

As the Huaca surrounded him in a sea of people, the turtleman roared, head raised to the sky. He thrashed from side to side, throwing people off as fast as they could scurry back to him. Silluka bucked and jerked, but her hold on his wrap near the center of his mass meant his movements could not toss her away.

But he was still winning. One foot was free, and he used it to knee a villager with the spike, throwing her to the ground, clutching a gash in her stomach.

They wouldn’t win. The turtleman would kill them all. Were there more of this monster? Even one was too much for them. What gods did the turtleman have, who were so strong? It was something to do with those vials, Silluka was certain.

Then a cry broke through the scene, like a hawk diving on its prey. Silluka looked back just in time to see Elder Quilqi, white hair streaming behind her, glowing like the morning sun with a bright yellow ampuka. She ran like the wind and leapt the last distance, entire body lined up horizontal behind one fist, the top knuckle extended. Silluka got only a glimpse of wide turtle eyes before the elder’s knuckle connected with his forehead with a crack like the sea battering a cliff. Dark, thick blood exploded from the wound and Elder Quilqi landed on top of the invader’s chest, villagers knocked aside like leaves fallen from a tree.

Silluka shakily released her deathgrip on the coarse fibers. She had traveled twenty paces with the elder, the turtleman, and a few villagers. The turtleman’s body had dug a trench into the rocky earth, his forehead cracked and leaking blood and gore like a ravine opened by an earthquake.

He was dead, eyes glazed, and Elder Quilqi stood over him triumphant. Silluka stared up at the woman who had started her on this journey. She had not been with the others. She was not like any elder Silluka had met before. How long had she been in the Huaca? She must have been around since before Silluka had been born, but she hadn’t seen the elder before yesterday. Elders were not that strong. They didn’t fight, they directed. Their bodies were no longer powerful enough to take the stresses of martial chayus.

“Crashing seas, girl, don’t just sit there with your mouth open,” Elder Quilqi said. “Haven’t you ever seen Eagle’s Beak? What do they teach kids these days? Help me get this body back to the village for study. We need to see what this invader is made of.”