The Shades paused in surprise at the noise -- the bushes stopped moving if only for a moment -- and Dorothea's ears pressed back against her skull. And then the Shades were on the move again, rising up out of the bushes. Four, seven, then nine of them stood up among the bramble on both sides of the road, hissing and clicking. August brandished his sword -- and he looked up.

Far away, a tree branch broke and fell. The forest roared like a freight train, and something was pounding and smashing and thundering toward them from deep within the forest. Its long neck and wide jaws flashed between the trees; its tail threw a sapling into the air like a twig. The Jockal slammed its way into the clearing, its nostrils sniffing for the source of the screams -- and its paw smashed off one of the wings of the Shades' statue, crushing it to dust.

The Shades screeched, and like a flood they threw themselves upon the Jockal with impossible speed, scratching and biting in an angry frenzy; the Jockal wheezed and bit and flung its head and tail, crashing into the trees, scratching them and scraping them off its scales.

August grabbed Sam's hand and jumped off the road, away from the statue and the raging battle, over rocks and fallen trees and running brooks. The clicks and screams and shrill cries of warfare dissipated behind them, and Dorothea laughed.

"Three cheers for your boyfriend the Jockal!" she giggled.