The Last Days of Krypton - Kevin J. Anderson [19]
Zor-El began making plans to bring much larger teams here with heavy equipment. More than likely, he would have to pull his brother into the effort if the scale was as great as he imagined. Though Jor-El was more of an astronomer than a geologist, more theoretician than engineer, his insights would be vital. Even from the preliminary glimpse of data, Zor-El guessed that this problem was too large to be ignored.
He breathed through the flower mask on his face, and fumaroles and geysers continued to hiss around him, blurring his vision. As he rummaged in his pack, though, something gave him an instinctive shudder, a feeling that he was being watched even in this blasted place. The dark hairs prickled on the back of his neck.
He stood and spun, ready to fight. Suddenly, he saw movement among the black rocks, no more than a shadow—four shadows. Their color was the same as fresh lava rock and newly cooled obsidian, but the motion was lithe, fast, predatory. Crawling over the terrain low to the ground came four vicious-looking giant lizards. Hrakkas.
They were stalking him.
Zor-El drew a quick breath through the filtering flower. His mind spun as he tried to find a way to protect himself. He had not come here to the southern continent to fight. Because most indigenous creatures had been wiped out in the eruption, these hardy lizards must be very hungry. Their normal prey had been decimated, and the steaming landscape offered very little to eat, even for scavengers.
Careful to make no abrupt moves, Zor-El held his pack in front of him, the only shield he had. He estimated how far away his landed flyer was. Judging by their powerful reptilian legs, he assumed the hrakkas could run faster than he could, especially over the sharp-edged rock field.
The dark lizards warily circled him, and he watched their every movement. He counted four, but that didn’t mean there weren’t more of them unseen among the jumbled terrain. They hunted like a pack and could very well be setting up a trap. The creatures blended into their surroundings, except when they opened their jaws, and the flash of white teeth gave them away.
Because the smooth black crust could be eggshell thin, Zor-El had been careful picking his way to the edge of the lava flow. Now he scanned the ground along his escape route and mentally mapped his path, planning ten footsteps ahead. When he saw the black lizards closing in, he bolted.
Zor-El had taken no more than five steps before the creatures gave up all attempts at stealth and bounded after him. He jumped from one large rock to another, hoping each foothold was solid and stable. With one arm wrapped around the pack, he heaved great breaths through the flower mask. His foot slipped, and a sharp rock cut a long gash in his ankle. He ignored the pain, kept running.
Smelling blood, the hrakkas closed in. The nearest one stepped on a thin-shelled area and broke through, and its clawed forelimb dropped into the still-molten rock underneath. It yowled and hissed, pulling out a smoking stump, the rest of its paw incinerated. Sensing easy prey, a second hrakka dashed in, opened its jaws, tore open the belly of its wounded companion, and began to feed, ignoring the chase.
With half of the hrakkas out of the way, Zor-El had to worry about only two more of the black lizards. When one lunged at him, he spun and shoved his pack into its gaping mouth. He jammed it firmly into the beast’s maw and twisted to shove the lizard aside. The momentum nearly bowled him over, but he let go of the tangled pack and sprang in another direction.
The hrakka tossed its head back and forth, trying to rip open the object or free its teeth. The other hrakka dove in, fighting for whatever “prey” the other had caught. Both creatures ignored Zor-El.
In the struggle with the pack, the filtering flower had been knocked from Zor-El’s face, and now each breath felt as if he were gulping an open flame. Panting, he increased his lead, furious at the hrakkas. His