The frozen plains of Snow Land had always been cruel, but they were honest in their cruelty. Wind, ice, and time were enemies the Warrior Dames understood. Grawar was different.
When the creature emerged from the white horizon, the ground itself seemed to recoil. Twelve feet tall, wrapped in ancient frost and rage, Grawar’s footsteps cracked the ice beneath him like splitting stone. Each step sent a tremor racing across the plains, rattling bone charms, shaking huts, and scattering mammoths into uneasy circles. Fires vanished under drifting snow. The sky dimmed, as if Snow Land itself held its breath.
Rara, Kara, and Wara moved instantly, forming a defensive wall between the village and the beast. Their spears were raised, their stances perfect, their expressions unflinching. Yet none of them struck.
Among the Warrior Dames, Grawar was not merely a monster. He was a forbidden name woven deep into Snow Land folklore. From childhood, every Dame was taught the same law: a Grawar may be resisted, delayed, endured—but never harmed. To spill a Grawar’s blood was believed to invite ruin, famine, and endless winter upon their people. Villages that broke this taboo, the elders said, vanished beneath storms that never ended. Whether truth or myth no longer mattered. The belief ruled them as strongly as any weapon.
So the Dames fought without killing blows. They diverted him from children, dragged survivors from collapsing huts, and endured wounds without retaliation. When Grawar seized Kara in his massive grip and roared in triumph, Snow Land reached the edge of catastrophe. The law that had protected them for generations had become a chain.
That was when the ancient rite was invoked.
High above the plains, unseen by Grawar’s burning eyes, Tiwa, Fairy of Falcon, answered the call. Snow Land magic was not written in runes or spoken aloud. It moved through intention, through balance, through beings older than borders. Tiwa carried the Dames’ plea across the planet, through currents of power that ignored distance and time, until it reached the Cave of Falcon.
Within the cave, the Dwarf did not hesitate. He needed no explanation. Ancient mechanisms awakened beneath the stone, light gathering like a heartbeat. Faro stood at the center as the power surged, the Ring answering the summons before he fully understood it. In a blinding flash, the cave vanished, and the frozen air of Snow Land slammed into his lungs.
Faro arrived as thunder made flesh.
Grawar turned just as the first golden beam tore through the storm. The impact shook the plains harder than any avalanche. Ice exploded outward, snow lifting in a violent halo. Grawar staggered, roaring in fury, his grip loosening as Kara fell free into the snow. The creature charged, claws carving trenches deep enough to swallow men whole, but Faro stood his ground. Each blast from the Ring struck with planetary force, echoing across the plains, cracking ice miles away.
The battle was brief, violent, and absolute. Grawar howled as the ancient power overwhelmed him, not slain, but driven back, broken and fleeing into the white emptiness from which he came. When silence finally returned, Snow Land still stood.
In the aftermath, the Warrior Dames did something no song had ever recorded. They bowed.
Not in submission, and not in weakness, but in recognition. Faro had done what they could not without damning their people. He had carried the burden their laws forbade them to bear. Snow Land was saved without breaking its ancient covenant.
That night, celebration replaced fear. Snow fell gently instead of violently. Mammoths returned. Fires burned steady. And though Faro would not remain among them, the name Grawar would forever mark the day Snow Land was tested by its own beliefs—and endured.
In the quiet after the storm, the Warrior Dames knew one truth with certainty: some battles require strength, others require restraint, and a few demand someone from beyond the law to strike when no one else can.