The iron cauldrons tilted with a metallic groan, their searing contents spilling over the battlements in a shimmering golden torrent. For one suspended moment, the boiling sand caught the morning light, glittering like liquid fire as it arced through the air. Then it found its mark.
The first screams weren't human.
They were the shrieks of metal - the tortured hiss of superheated sand meeting cold steel armor. The battering ram crew never stood a chance. Their raised shields, so effective against arrows and stones, became instruments of their own torment. The cascading sand didn't strike - it flowed, it crept, it insinuated itself with malicious intelligence into every gap and crevice.
