The water source was one of the snaking lakes, a section of it that curved through the forest floor a few hundred metres from their current position, the specific sound of moving water becoming audible before the trees thinned enough to show it.
Narrower than the section he had used earlier in the forest, the water running faster here, the channel carved into the terrain by centuries of the same path being followed.
Clean enough for the purpose.
He walked into the shallows.
The cold hit immediately and was not a surprise, the snaking lakes having been consistently cold throughout his time here, the deep root systems keeping the temperature below what the ambient air would have produced.
He was in up to his knees and had his hands in the water before his body had fully accepted the decision.
He got on with it.
