The moment I was wrenched from my saddle a part of my brain started counting seconds.
One thousand, two thousand, three thousand, fou... my back slammed into the cliff wall with a crunch as my star-metal armor left a dent in the softer rock.
Between one and two thousand I had twisted my body to face the rock ogre, using the same trick children use to start swinging when their feet couldn't yet reach the ground.
My half dragon had immediately noticed me missing from the saddle and was already charging towards me - while the rock ogre would not be able to hurt my mount, neither could a half dragon do much against a rock ogre.
A half dragon's teeth were not hard enough to do more than slightly scratch stone.
Dropping to the ground I started sprinting towards the rock ogre and met my half dragon half way - with a sharp whistle I commanded it to continue running in the same direction away from the monster.
As I passed my mount I also grabbed Bear-Grim from the scabbard that was hanging from the saddle.
The summoned rock ogre though more than twice my height was surprisingly slow - but thanks to its long legs it was closing in and in three more strides I was within its strike zone.
I jumped to feint as if to slash its right chest - the rock ogre raised its club.
Taking a page from Quania's book, I dropped to my knees and let myself slide past the rock ogres left side - as I passed I swung my star metal sword and sliced through its tree thick lower leg.
While sliding past the rock ogre, I witnessed a second one being summoned close to my elites.
Of course these summons were not real rock-ogres - they lacked an ego of their own, and did not even have a magic stone.
From its jerky movement, I realized this was just a low level summons - the summoner would need to be directing the monster's every action by line of sight.
A series of encoded whistles being passed back and forth between the elite commanders showed they had also noticed this fact.
"My Lady, up there!" [Egramora the Barbarian Queen]
That shout was followed by a series of crunchy "thunks" - jumping to my feet and looking up I saw several swords embedded close to the top of the cliff where three faces looked down on us - they realized the swords could not reach them, so they kept watching us and directing their summons.
Katiana had exited her carriage and was using her collection of mediocre swords as large throwing knives, trying to reach the summoners.
Of course even though missing a leg, my rock ogre was not yet out for the count.
It hopped on its remaining leg and swung its club down at me.
This time I simply blocked the swing and in the same movement sliced off its attacking arm at the elbow.
The summoned monster raised its remaining fist and tried to punch me, but I skipped behind it so that I could see what was being done about the second rock ogre.
My elites had experience subjecting real ogres five times my height, ogres who fought with sneaky intelligence.
So bringing down a puppet rock ogre was simple enough.
Two of the elites had spanned a sturdy rope between themselves, and rode swiftly on their half-dragons up to the rock ogre, passing it on either side.
As they passed they changed direction slightly to spread out - this caused the rope to tighten and was enough to trip up the rock ogre.
A dozen elites on foot swarmed the rock golem and made sashimi out of it in short order.
A third rock-ogre had been summoned on the far side of the convey in an attempt to cut off our retreat.
Sadly, it encountered several of the dungeon trained 'Wings of the Goddess' combat maids, who swarmed the rock ogre and mercilessly dismembered it before it could even move.
The fact that two of the combat maids expertly wielded long handled war hammers certainly was not advantageous to the rock ogre - with the first swing of her war hammer, Gina had obliterated the summoned monster's head into dust, while another combat maid pulverized its left leg.
At about the same moment as the third summon met its crumbling demise, I had chopped the second leg from under my rock ogre.
Star-metal really cut rock like butter - as I swung Bear-Grim, a part of my mind was wondering if this is what Katiana called a "cheat"?
My rock ogre fell over and when it tried to use its remaining arm to stabilize itself, I chopped that off, too, leaving the rock ogre to struggle uselessly on the ground.
Although having taken things easy, I took the moment of respite to look up at another sword sailing up towards the cliff top - which now started looking like a rather surreal pin cushion.
This time Katiana had aimed too high - the thrown sword flew over the cliff top just as the three heads ducked out of sight.
And as the sword reached where the heads had been a heartbeat before, I felt rather than saw a fist sized blob jump off the flying sword onto the cliff top.
Seems the Demon of Blades had lent Katiana another invisible spy slime - or could this be the same on that Katiana had previously snuck onto the lanky straw haired Baron de Tohdstuhl?
Sadly at this distance I could only feel the magic, not distinguish its texture - my great-aunt's slime book made no mention of invisible or even camouflaging slimes so I still could not postulate if invisible slimes were rare or actually relatively common.
With a short whistle, my half-dragon returned to me, and I leapt back into the saddle just as the remains of the summoned rock ogre collapsed into sand, their magic all used up.
I reached the elites surrounding the carriage convoy - Katiana was pointing up at the cliff at her work and grinned at me as I approached.
"Indeed - impressive throwing my wife, but you might want to practice aiming a bit more."
"Well, I wasn't trying to kill anyone. Hey, I wonder what people will say when they see my artwork up there?" [Katiana]
"It will likely go down in legend - just not sure as what, my dear."
"Hehe, I always wanted to leave some sort of mark behind - eh, in a decade they will have rusted away, though, I guess..." [Katiana]
"The question more is, who would dare attack us, my Lord?" [Egramora the Barbarian Queen]
"Well, I think that is obvious. The second Empress' faction."
"Oh, right - that mole big-sis and I sussed out at Marquess of Caraesal's event..." [Katiana]
"Indeed. Well, looks like the entertainment is over for the moment - move out."
We continued up the mountain pass and in late afternoon we reached a plateau - the many old fire pits proved this to be a popular resting place for travelers.
I had a quick look around - to the west the snowy mountains rose up, one behind the next; the east was where we had come from; in the south the heavily forested foothills of the mountains stretched to the horizon.
And to the north was where we were headed, following the mountain pass through the canyon that we had been riding through all day.
The elites spread out and went about their chores - feeding and watering the half-dragons, setting up tents, and erecting a temporary border around the camp.
The four carriages and four carts became the centerpiece of the camp - Katiana's carriage was slightly modified by adding in a board between the front and back seats, and covering it with fluffy cushions, making it a nice bed for her.
Ingredients were taken out from various item bags, and dinner was soon ready - having a simple but freshly cooked meal was important to keep up our strength and morals.
"Ah, I never get tired of camping - but this feels more like 'glamping' - I even get my own camper!" [Katiana]
"You have gone through many hardships in your life, so this is the least I can provide you. If my sister was with us, we'd all be in one of her conjured bear shaped houses. When she was younger she would conjure up fantastical castles and huge white metal globes - so I suppose bear houses are less... weird? Maybe."
"Well, it isn't good to get too too comfy - but I am very very grateful that you converted my carriage into a sleeping room, yes I am! But where will you sleep?" [Katiana]
"I have my own war tent - it is comfortable enough."
My elite commanders took care of the watch rotation, and as there was nothing left for me to do, I retired for the night.
A large surge of magic woke me up.
Before I could even open my eyes a series of deafening booms rolled over the camp.
I heard one of the elite commanders, Leandera, giving short orders.
"Mages, full spectrum barriers up to the west!" [Leandera of the Ice Blade]
Exiting the tent I looked in the direction of the rumblings - it was still deep night, but several mages had cast "sunlight" and the western mountain range was lit up as if it was noon.
The booming noise had started an avalanche - a tide of snow the height of a three story building was thundering down towards us, and within seconds the wave crashed into our camp.
Or would have if it hadn't been for the several layered barriers that covered the camp in a dome - the avalanche crashed above and around the barrier harmlessly for several minutes.
Then the noise petered out - it was suddenly silent.
All around us and above we were surrounded and covered by snow - we were trapped in a huge igloo, with only the barriers above preventing us from being crushed.
"Barrier mages, allow heat transfer - fire mages, melt that snow above us!" [Leandera of the Ice Blade]
Several fireballs and fire spears rose up towards the middle of the barrier dome, hitting the barrier - the barriers flickered but held.
After a few moments of fire barrage the middle of the dome became snow free and we saw the night sky above - after a bit more work all the snow above us was melted, the runoff water draining away downhill to the east.
We were still surrounded by a two story circle of snow, but at least the barrier mages could rest now.
Katiana stood close to me - again, I had not noticed her approach.
"Oh, I guess the second Empress's faction really doesn't want us to succeed..." [Katiana]
My wife looked around with large eyes, then shook her head - her hair swirled around close to my face and I detected the slight fragrance of almonds.
"Indeed my Lady, and this will be annoying to get out of - let's check the pass for now..." [Leandera of the Ice Blade]
Leandera threw up her hawk familiar into the air to view the surroundings - it returned after a few moments and landed back on Leandera's arm.
"My Lord, the northern pass is completely wiped out - the wagons cannot drive through snow, so we will need to leave them here." [Leandera of the Ice Blade]
"What about the half-dragons? They seem to have a bit webbed feet - can they walk on snow?" [Katiana]
"Yes, that is part of the reason I did not take horses along - because of their own internal heat, half-dragons are even useful in the deep north."
Katiana scratched her chin for a moment then grinned and started waving her arms around.
"Eh, I think I might have an idea! I don't want to leave my camper behind now that I got one! Can someone go collect a dozen of those larger trees that got flattened in the avalanche, please?" [Katiana]
I still was not sure what a "camper" was but I nodded at several elites, who scampered off towards the southern forest to do my wife's bidding.
