knees pulled up, ready to spring to his feet. He palmed one of his leaf-bladed
knives. They were designed and honed for throwing, but were also useful in
hand-to-hand combat. The razor-sharp edge should have just the cutting power he
desired. The last thing he wanted was for it to get stuck.
Ignoring the stench that filled his mouth and nose, Jak took a deep breath and
thrust down with his calf muscles, propelling himself up with a force that made
his stomach muscles ripple and strain with the effort. He rose to his feet
beneath the creature, and before he was more than halfway up he made the first
sweeping incision in the soft scales that covered the gizzard.
Even the softest parts of the mutie lizard were tough, and Jak felt the
resistance jar his arm as the knife bit into the scales. But with a little extra
push, he penetrated the skin and felt the knife bite into soft flesh. He pulled
across from left to right, feeling the flesh rip and tear as the point moved
through the gizzard, the hilt of the knife left behind, following with just that
slight degree of drag as it caught on the tougher skin.
Blood started to drip from the wound, a shower that turned into a torrent as Jak
hit an artery. The lizard released its tongue from around Tod as it tried to
scream in agony, finding that its voice was reduced to a gurgle.
Beneath the lizard’s slit throat, Jak was hit by a sheet of stinking, hot blood
that turned the ground beneath his feet into a mud bath. It covered him
plastering his hair to his head, staining him as red as his albino eyes.
The lizard’s tongue whipped through the air in a random series of jerks, any
control lost as the creature began to lose control of its motor functions.
Tod’s corpse lay on the ground, the head giving off steam as the heat from its
enclosure hit the colder air of the storm. All who were looking on were grateful
that the storm could obscure their view to some degree, as the giant seemed
intact until their eyes reached his neck. There, any semblance to a human being
ended. Strips of raw flesh hung off the skull, which in itself seemed to have
shrunken and altered shape in some degree. It was as though the acid venom had
somehow softened the bone, and the pressure of that immense tongue wrapped
around the head had meant that the skull had been compressed so that it seemed
elongated, and much too thin for its body.
Tilly took one look at it and fell to her knees, howling in terror and
heart-wrenching pain. She rocked back and forth, lost in her own world.
It was to prove fatal. Jak had taken his drenching and stayed beneath the head
of the beast for a good reason. While the tongue thrashed about aimlessly but
dangerously, it was impossible to try to second-guess the creature’s movements.
There was a danger that it could collapse on him, but Jak would rather take his
chances of using his speed to get free than risk being caught by the tongue.
Such a thought didn’t enter Tilly’s anguished mind. She just stayed on her knees
and howled.
It was only a matter of time until the tongue caught her.
Krysty tore her eyes away from the inevitable, catching sight of Mac and his two
mute sec men. They had all stopped firing, and were watching the tableau in
front of them in slack-jawed horror. She saw Mac mouth something and shake his
head sadly.
Turning her attention back to the direction of the giant lizard, she could see
that the tongue had flicked in an arc and caught Tilly around the head. The
speed and momentum of the tongue had hit her with a blow strong enough to knock
her over. And it would have done. However, the tongue was rough, equipped with
suction to grasp its prey. At such a speed and force, the tongue attached itself
to her head and wouldn’t let go. The momentum of the tongue was greater than the