It was the next wraithto appear uponthe slope that sparked Toulouse's hope once again, the Lord emerging from the arch with urgency and (as usual) without any manners.
Who are these strays?
"From the threshold-" Toulouse grunted, splaying all four legs across the gravel as is split and crumbled beneath his weight. "Attacked-" the gelding shook his head, breathing heavy and laboured as he struggled over tht one final piece of the ascent. While his head remained heavier than ever, his shoudlers and spine sagging beneath each pressing drop of rain, the champion would continue. Taming his place beside the steady Lord, Toulouse waited for the flanking trio to reach a similar altitude before he would intervene once again with a push, shove, or pull upwards.

"It is no more" Toulouse confimed for his herd-brother and Lord "details later" - there was far too much to discuss now. For now there was naught to take in but the howl and scream of the wing, the shudder and boom of the mountainside and the crackle of splitting pine and wood. Each sound was a new threat, a new reminder of their dire situation.
Nora's discomfort did not go unnoticed however, and it was her strain and tension on her step that drew Toulouse's attention toward her once more. A cloudy exhale was expelled form his nares as he sought to cross the terrain once agin toward the reluctant woman who it seemed was fearful of the approaching Roland; a gentle man, and a handsome one too, who meant only to help her.
Don't you dare,
Noah, who by the time the thief had reached his side, seemed at boiling point. It was those three words, words that the pale one had trouble distinguishing which of the three other males present they were directed at, that caused him to stop in his tracks with a grand snarl upon his maw.
"Well!" He boomed, allowing his hooves to skate but a few paces down the mountainside so he might place himself directly behind Noah. "We can just leave you here on the glacier if you'd prefer!?" was his next aggravated growl, soon to send his entire shoulder in the direction of Noah's backside in an attempt to heave the stag forward, up and over the final hillock of the ascent in one final heave. The unlikely duo had been granted Toulouse's aid from the begining; they could not toss it aside so easily, nor pick and chose how it was given. As far as Toulouse was concerned, their only goal was to get safely past the arch and out of death's eye.