"There is an armoury in the Bridge Fortress." Dorain told him. "I will see to it that your weapons are replaced. Come, we must be going."
When Anest returned to where the others waited, he found Lily there, standing alone in the rain with Thunder, looking like an abandoned waif. He ached to go to her, to take her in his arms, but her bruised mien stopped him, silenced anything he might have said. When they mounted, he wished he could see her face. Instead, he had to endure the stiff silence of her back for the remainder of this leg of their journey.
When night fell it became so dark that Belloc illuminated the Vhurd-aq so that they could see the roadway ahead. The rain was so heavy that they could get no torch to light, and without light they could literally see nothing. The dark was so complete that even the sharp eyes of the elves were able to discern little. At first, Belloc was loath to illuminate his staff for fear that the enemy would see its light, but as this danger was little worse than straying too far off the Road and falling over a cliff, he acquiesced.
As they descended into the river valley it became increasingly cold because the river originated in the far north where winter was settled in already. The gelid water, coursing with a perpetual angry roar through its choked stone throat, radiated a numbing cold limned by a perpetual icy mist that seemed to suck away all warmth like the preternatural hunger of sepulchre-dwelling wights that coveted the warmth of living things. Lily began to shiver uncontrollably, until Anest drew some