The first volley of venomous arrows came down in a dark, hissing arc.
They cut through the humid air with a wet, ugly sound, the greasy green sheen of swamp-viper toxin catching what little light filtered through the overcast sky.
Shafts hammered into raised Veynar shields with a steady, irregular drumming.
Most thudded harmlessly into layered hide and wood.
A few did inevitably skip off rims or found narrow gaps between overlapping barriers.
One warrior in the second rank grunted as a tip scored his upper arm; he snapped the shaft, flung it aside, and kept moving. Zephyra's earlier working had already thinned the potency of the venom across the approach.
Even though the wound burned a bit, it did not drop him, which means the only thing left was for his essence to slowly burn the venom away.
Even through the intense volley of arrows, no one in the Veynar column broke stride.
They did not treat the defense as a battle that needed to be won.
