Arrows rained down. The nomad cavalry hidden among the civilians raised the small round shields they carried and kept advancing through the arrowstorm.
Those civilians had no defenses at all. They screamed as arrows struck them, then fell to the ground covered in blood. The nomad cavalrymen grabbed the civilians who had fallen dead, held their corpses before them to block the arrows, and charged toward the city walls.
As they neared the walls, the nomad cavalry threw the corpses in their hands to the ground. A great heap of bodies swiftly piled up into a small mountain.
Arthur leaped down from Diogo's back and landed lightly atop the wall. Watching the nomad cavalry outside race back and forth, continually hurling civilian corpses at the foot of the wall, he gave an unconcerned order: "What are the mages doing? Kill them."
Several hundred fire mages raised their staffs at once. Dense fireballs, long fire dragons, and great swathes of fiery meteors poured down from the walls like a flood. The nomad cavalrymen riding their steeds and gathering the corpses of shot-down civilians were caught completely off guard. More than a thousand of them were blasted to pieces in the flames on the spot.
Several hundred more nomad cavalrymen had their bodies set alight by fire dragons. They let out heart-rending shrieks as the blaze scorched their flesh, roasting their bodies until they sizzled. A pungent stench of charred meat filled the air, and before long, these unlucky souls and their mounts were burned to ashes together.
The temple priests in the distance began chanting again. Rings of earthy yellow light descended upon the attacking cavalry. Sand and wind churned, and heavy shields condensed from the storm erupted around the nomad cavalrymen and their mounts, whirling rapidly around their bodies and