Carved Into Stone

"FIRE!"

The smarter, more experienced ones quickly raised their shields, blocking out most of the projectiles.

The weaker, dumber, and naive ones? The ones who were still a little wet behind their ears?

They stared at death itself. 

"SHIELDS UP YOU MORONS!!"

Ali Baba's desperate shout roused some of them. Yet. it wasn't enough. 

Half of them faced the same fate the guard before Malik had.

One of the younger guards, likely only a few years older than him, gawked up at the sky—eyes wide in terror—before an arrow pierced through his head.

He collapsed, blood soaking his tunic.

What followed was worse.

A steed shrieked, an arrow buried deep in its flank, buckling beneath its rider.

The man barely had time to scream before he was trampled into the dust.

Another man fell from his saddle, an arrow buried deep in his throat.

Another screamed, clutching his leg where a jagged shaft had punched through.