The midnight gale came not from the clouds, but along the frozen ground. It rolled across the northern salt flats like a choking shroud of crushed ice.
Clear sight in Trench Line Four dropped to four paces. The whiteout was total. Sound itself seemed swallowed by the thickness of the falling flakes, replaced by the persistent, dry whistle of wind scouring the willow stone retaining walls.
Pei Jing stood at the forward salient. His feet were rooted to the split-pine corduroy planks, his ankles adjusting dynamically to the micro-shakes of the earth.
Beneath the howling gale, his inner ear detected a rhythmic back-and-forth swing that didn’t match the storm.
Whump... Whump... Whump.
It was the squeezing of deep snow beneath massive, padded paws. The rhythm was heavy, measured at ninety beats per minute. He carried a combined mass of not less than eight thousand pounds across six distinct vectors.
Pei Jing reached out and caught the shoulder of the lookout sergeant.
“Douse the fire bowl embers with sand,” Pei Jing commanded. “Don’t sound the brass horn. The sound will scatter their approach into the dead-angles.”
