Soaring – A Pannithor Story
20th Nov 2025
Matt Gilbert
Soaring, by Matt Gilbert
3851.CE
All Tharin could hear this high up was the wind and the heavy beat of Bran’s wings. Nature’s silence was his favourite sound. His left hand gripped the pommel of the flight-saddle and he held his lens to his right eye as he surveyed the land far below. Even at such great a distance, he could discern the armies beneath him and understand the flow of the battle. He was tasked with finding the deception. What had the rangers on the ground missed? Where was the enemy hiding?
He gently guided Bran back round, high over the pines that rose from the steep slopes of Camfaen Pass. Where the ground flattened out into a broad, shallow basin, battle lines clashed and the ground was littered with what could only be the bodies of the dead. A line of bright flashes and white smoke heralded the soft booms that reached his ears some moments later. For the rest, he could only imagine the awful clash of steel, the rallying cries of the champions, and the screams of the dying.
Dynfawr’s right flank had moved round and was pressing hard on Venngal’s left. Overmaster Venngal liked his mutants, and Tharin reckoned it was a mass of grotesques that Dynfawr’s Ironclad units had now encountered. In the centre, amid what must have sounded like a tremendous earthquake to those on the ground, blocks of earth elementals and obsidian golems slugged it out with heavy, smashing blows.
Distracted by darkening clouds to the north, and almost too late, he descried the ruse. Bran cawed – his keen eyes had found several bodies of warriors on the edge of the trees. Training his lens on the pines, Tharin rapidly estimated the enemy’s numbers. Bran had levelled out and slowed to allow Tharin a steadier observation. The treeline appeared to disintegrate and melt as the hidden regiments emerged and charged towards the vulnerable artillery and the Imperial left flank.
Banking sharply, he coaxed Bran into a steep dive. Gwion and Rhian’s ravens appeared and matched Bran’s rapid swoop. Tharin hastily returned his lens to its wallet and signalled to the others with his now-free hand. Gwion dropped a pair of flash bombs which exploded in the air high above the charging horde to attract attention, and Tharin lead the frostwing flight into a well-practiced pattern.
The pattern was read by the watchers on the ground. Horns blared to signal their allies, and the regiments of Free Dwarf brock riders, waiting in the ravine, snarled into life. Gathering speed, they debouched into the cirque and fanned out wide, before crashing into the stunned ambushers.
Rhian’s raven screeched and wheeled. Tharin and Gwion snapped round to see what had so alarmed the great beast. The dark clouds had resolved themselves into a vast flock of wailing gargoyles that now descended on the Imperial lines – a host so thick they outnumbered all the combatants from both sides below. Wing, fang and claw hammered into Dynfawr’s forces in a sickening, frenzied bloodbath.
The Imperial lines collapsed, and now there was a distinct sound to be heard. The helpless frostwings turned away from the slaughter and fled to the high peaks before they attracted the attention of the flying terrors. Their duty now was to warn Lord Thalyth that Dynfawr had failed to stop the advance of their cursed cousins.
Nature’s silence had been replaced by the keening wail of death, and Tharin would hear it for a very long time, even in his dreams.
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