Chapter 97: The Snow Banks Shift
The intolerable shrieking of the ceramic cones finally tapered off, dropping down through the audible spectrum until the sonic pressure vanished into the freezing air. High along the western cornice of the manor, the heavy hydraulic actuators engaged once more, drawing the four dark aluminum dishes back into their recessed structural pockets. The copper clad armor panels slid along their greased steel tracks, meeting at the center seams with dull mechanical thuds that sealed the bays against the driving sleet.
A heavy, suffocating silence settled across the western terrace, though for the thirty five men sprawled in the drifts, the world was anything but quiet.
Their ruptured eardrums throbbed with a persistent, phantom ringing that drowned out the howli
