Chapter 92: The False Confidence
The thirty five armed scavengers spread outward across the wide snow covered lawn of Alderwood Manor, fanning out like a net cast across frozen gravel. The high stone pillars of the broken perimeter entrance fell behind them, their iron pickets buried beneath the drifts where the battering ram had crushed them into the powder. Ahead lay forty yards of open terraced ground, rising gently toward the monolithic granite facade of the main house.
The gale whipped across the clearing at forty knots, blowing loose crystals of dry ice across their boots, yet the men advanced with careless bravado.
They held their stolen hunting rifles and tactical shotguns at their waists, their fingers hooked loosely over trigger guards, their eyes scanning the dark rows of upp
