machicoulis

The cornices are machicolated, though nobody expects to pour hot lead from the machicoulis."

A machicolation (, machicoulis) is a floor opening between the supporting corbels of a battlement, through which stones, or other objects, could be dropped on attackers at the base of a defensive wall.

Even when an onslaught was delivered on the main gateway at night, they had beaten their assailants by letting fall upon them through the /machicoulis/ or overhanging apertures, great stones that had been piled up there, perhaps generations before, when the place was built.

Machicolation: Machicolations (from the French word machicoulis, implying a meaning of something like "neck-crusher") consisted of openings between a wall and a parapet, formed by corbelling out the latter, so that the defenders might throw down stones, boiling water, and so forth, upon assailants below.