Harpies

Harpies are foul, winged things that haunt the crags and dead trees at the forest's edge, half-woman and half-carrion-bird in shape and wholly malevolent in temperament. Whether they are a debased kindred of beastmen or something older and stranger, none can say, and the herds do not trouble to ask; they value the creatures only for what they do. Loosed above the battlefield, harpies climb on ragged wings and then fall shrieking upon the enemy's soft places, artillery crews, lone wizards, the runners carrying orders, raking with filthy talons and tearing at faces before beating clumsily back into the air. They have no discipline and less courage, scattering from any real resistance, but against the vulnerable and the isolated they are murder on the wing. Their screeching carries far through the trees, and to soldiers holding the treeline it is a hated sound, for it means the herd's eyes are already overhead and the killing has begun above as well as below.