A/N: Another chapter at the start of the month, ladies and gentlemen! I had a lot of fun with this one, too; writing gory descriptions is one of the many things I look forward to, and this chapter is no exception. I'm trying to reveal the details of this strange new world as gently and smoothly as possible, but you'll have to be the judge of how well I'm doing. As always, I thank you for your reviews, and ask only that you continue providing them so generously:

Wile E. Coyote: As I said, I'm slowly revealing details of this world, but I will reveal what world this story takes place in... soon. (evil laughter)

Nami Swannn: Just wait and see; that'll be the subject of this very chapter.

So, without further ado, the latest chapter: friends and foes, allies and enemies, and all manner of other colourfully grotesque things to be found in this unknown land!

Read, review, and above all, enjoy!

Disclaimer: I cannot lay claim to Wicked for it is not mine.

1/5/15: Corrected errors, typos and other mistakes.

Elphaba had not expected this, to say the least.

The moment she'd turned to face the oncoming brigands and let her magic blaze across her limbs, she'd been waiting for the inevitable hail of gunfire that would erase her from existence; when they'd grabbed her arms and held her still while their captain approached, she'd thought – hoped – that they were about to cut her throat. But no, they'd spared her life, not exactly the most predictable course of action from the people who'd just blown up a railway building and tried to do the same thing to a fleeing passenger train.

And what about the way they'd reacted to her skin? By now, people staring at her was nothing new, but this had to be the first time when those stares hadn't been accompanied by disgusted muttering or (more recently) terrified screams. Furthermore, what the hell had they meant by "why didn't you say you were one of us?" And once again, who were these people?

It was at that point, just as Elphaba's sense of credulity was about to implode, that a few members of the crowd shuffled forward in an attempt to get a closer look at her face; as they stepped into the light, Elphaba got a good look at their faces as well - and realized with a jolt of shock that she'd been wrong: apart from the light cuirasses they wore beneath their ragged black cloaks and tunics, they had very little in the way of armour; certainly nothing to suggest the fearsome helmets and masks she thought she'd seen beforehand.

Here and now, she could see that those nightmarish features weren't part of their armour at all: they were extensions of their bodies.

All around her, the brigands' flesh was marked and mutilated in all manner of impossible ways: many had faces that looked as though they'd been borrowed from wild animals, with the jaws of wolves and bears the most common, although Elphaba could see a few hooked raptors' beaks and sharklike maws among them; some had heads adorned with deer antlers, bull horns, feathery crests, or even piscine fins; skin coated in reptilian scales, thick furry pelts and various kinds of feathers were also common, with the odd insect carapace here and there; a few had been disfigured in a much less orderly fashion, their faces left a jumbled mixture of warped flesh, randomly-sprouting teeth, compound eyes, pulsating glands and venom-dripping spines. The limbs of the brigands were no less diverse: talon-like nails, fingers distended into tentacles, scythe-like claws, pincers like those of crabs and lobsters, fists fused into knobbly mace-like growths of bone and cartilage, snapping crocodile jaws in place of hands; there were even a few that had no hands at all- just stumps with weapons jammed into the flesh of the arm, from hooked blades to wide-barrelled guns. And the patchwork of deformities didn't seem limited to the organic or the crude, either: several arms were clearly made of steel and brass, either skeletal frames with clockwork innards of whirring gears and cogs, or full-fledged metal limbs with hissing pistons and puttering engines; in the nearest faces, copper eyeballs swivelled in their sockets, and glass retinas whirred and clicked as they focussed; and there were much more complicated machines incorporated into some of the bodies of those around her, most of which Elphaba didn't recognize.

At once enthralled and horrified, she could only gape and once again ask herself: who were these people? What had happened to them? Was this magic- something like the magical transformations that she'd cast on Chistery and Boq? Was it new technology? Or was there something even more disturbing at work in this strange country?

The brigand captain was eyeing her with great interest. Out of all them, he seemed the most normal: true, the gauntlets which had at first appeared to cover his hands were clearly mechanical prosthetics, and his neck appeared to be threaded with copper wiring, but that was all Elphaba could see. The man was hardly a pretty sight, however: his shiny-bald head was covered in old battlescars and long-healed wounds, from the jagged line slicing the bridge of his nose in half to the conspicuous lack of ears on either side of his head.

"Tell me," he said, leaning closer, "Just how long did that take?"

Elphaba swallowed hard. "I'm sorry, what?"

"How long did it take for you to get the skin right? It's a very impressive job, whatever method you used."

Murmurs of agreement issued from the other brigands; one of the closer ones – a spindly woman with azure-coloured scales running along the length of her arms and face – whispered, "It's clearly not a total skin replacement; I mean, you can still see the veins through it."

"Perhaps it's an enchantment," rumbled an enormous brigand, its features and gender hidden behind massive folds of elephantine hide.

"Maybe so," said another, his words garbled by the writhing mass of fleshy tendrils that covered his lips. "But if you ask me, it looks like a dye."

The captain shook his head. "No, I think you'd have to make a lot of injections to dye the entire face, and I don't see any..." He paused, then reached out and grabbed Elphaba's wrist. "Your hands too?" he said incredulously; he began rolling her sleeve back up along her arm, gasping with surprise at the emerald-green skin beneath it. "Have you had your whole body...?"

"Her neck..." someone whispered.

"...It's dyed all the way down..."

"It can't be just dye; it has to be an enchantment."

Elphaba, who'd been a little too taken aback by all the attention to respond, suddenly realised that the ringleader of the group was now peering down the neck of her dress. Modesty- coupled with a deeply-ingrained dislike of being stared at - kicked in: "Do you mind?!" she yelled, shoving the brigand away.

"And she blushes, too!" a voice in the crowd exclaimed, to gales of laughter.

"Sorry, ma'am," the captain chuckled. "It's been a while since we've seen anything like that as far as alterations go; I'm honestly not sure how you did it, but maybe we've just been out of the workshops too long to see what the surgeons have been cooking up of late. Then again, maybe you can tell us what we've got to look forward to, right? Of course, we'll have to get into what mission you were sent on to end up all this way past the Radiant Border sooner or later, but pleasure before business, that's what I always say-"

"How I did what?"

There was a stunned silence.

"... this is an alteration, right? I mean, it's clearly not makeup, so that's logically the only way you could have ended up-"

Elphaba barely stopped herself from shouting her next words, only just managing to resort to an indignant snarl of "I was born like this."

Another stunned silence followed, broken only by the faint conversation among the brigands, most of which consisted of remarks to the effect of "What?" "How?" or "No wonder she's so far away from the cities, the poor dear." As the moments dragged by, Elphaba could clearly see their leader reassessing her, as if trying to determine if she was a threat or not; for her part, she did the same - assuming there'd be any way of guessing if the crowd would turn on her for admitting her skin wasn't an "alteration," whatever than meant. Then, with a spark of insight, the logical definition of the term suddenly flickered into her brain.

"Hang on," she said slowly. "You did this," she gestured vaguely at the bewildering array of deformities and prosthetics that adorned the crowd, "All of this... to yourselves?"

"Not all of it," said the blue scaled woman, a tad defensively. "Mage-surgeons took care of what we couldn't change on our own."

"But why?"

"You don't know?"

"Well I'm asking you, so obviously I don't know!" Elphaba closed her eyes, and tried to steady her temper for a moment or two. "As a matter of fact," she continued, "I don't know where I am, who you people are, why you're here, why I'm here, or how I got here. All I know is that I woke up just outside this forest a few minutes ago, and then you started blowing things up: that's about the sum total of what I know about this country. So, if it's not too much trouble, could you please explain what the hell is going on and why?"

The captain was once again looking at her with undisguised curiosity. "Where exactly are you from?"

"The Land of Oz." Seeing only blank stares in response, Elphaba tried to clarify, but there honestly wasn't much she could explain without making it embarrassingly apparent that she was in fish-out-of-water territory. In the end, she got as far as identifying the four major regions and the capital before giving up.

"And you say you've never been in this land before you woke up in it?"

"That's right."

He chuckled, and exchanged knowing glances with the blue-scaled woman. "Hellion," they said in perfect unison.

"Who?"

"Nevermind that now, ma'am; we shouldn't stick around here asking questions for too long: by now, the alarm's probably been sounded, and the reinforcements will be on their way any minute- and I very much doubt they'll be pleased to see you. Point is, if you want answers – and safety – you need to come with us. I'll explain everything once we're out of enemy territory and back into the Deviant-lands; then with a bit of luck and a lot of magic, we might be able to figure out some way of sending you back home. How's that sound?"

Elphaba bit her lip: the offer was reasonable enough, and it certainly seemed the only logical way of getting to safety; but there were other ideas clamouring for attention in her head, none of them anywhere as reasonable, but all of them worryingly tempting. Her despair, briefly exiled from the front of her mind by the shock of the last few minutes, now demanded to know how anything could improve by following these strangers- or by any other course of action except lying down and awaiting death. Her cynicism also barged its way into the mental spotlight, insisting that they stall for time and try to figure out who these people were before joining them. And finally, her desire to see Glinda again started whining to be heard.

"I need to know something about the train you shot at: my friend was on-board asking for directions when it took off; do you know where it's headed or where she might be able to disembark-"

The brigand leader's expression darkened. "Aye, we know. It's headed straight for Exemplar, capital of Unbridled Radiance- and before you ask, no: we're not following it any deeper than we already have. We're a raiding party, not a suicide squad."

Oh well, Elphaba thought sadly. I didn't really think it was going to be that easy, did I?

"This friend of yours," the captain went on. "Does she have green skin too?"

Elphaba shook her head.

"Good. She'll have a decent chance at surviving if she keeps her mouth shut about knowing a green girl; maybe she'll get lucky, bump into some of the deep cover men we've got in the cities, and maybe you'll see her again someday. 'Til then, you've got to keep yourself safe too, and that means going over the border with us." And for the second time that day, he extended an iron-skinned hand in entreaty. "So, what'll it be?" he asked.

There was the briefest of pauses, as Elphaba silently weighed her options: this time, despair was overshadowed by the chance – however vague and distant – to see Glinda again. Tentatively, she reached out and shook the offered hand, to relieved sighs from the crowd and a crooked grey-toothed smile from the captain.

"Well then," he said briskly, "I suppose you'll be wanting to know who we are if you're working with us for the time being." He offered a wry salute: "I am Captain Malford Marl, duly-sworn officer of the Deviant Nations' armies, proud member of the Irredeemables and commander of this raiding party. And these here," he indicated the crowd, "Are the finest and craziest bastards the Irredeemables have to offer."

The crowd laughed, and the blue scaled-woman rolled her eyes. "You're so damn generous with compliments these days, boss," she said, over the roar of guffawing.

Marl ignored her. "With that out of the way, ma'am, who are you?"

Elphaba took a deep breath, and absent-mindedly wondered if giving her real name would make any difference in a country where nobody knew anything about Oz. Eventually, she announced, "My name is Elphaba Thropp, known to the doubtlessly good and enlightened people of Oz as the Wicked Witch of the West."

There was another smattering of laughter and applause from the raiding party.

As the noise died down, she nodded up at the treetops where Chistery was still hiding. On cue, the Flying Monkey swooped down from the canopy, landing beside her to great gasps of astonishment from the crowd. "And this," she continued, "Is my friend Chistery."

"Damn it," Marl chortled. "Do you have any other friends hanging around waiting to be introduced, or is that the last of them?"

Elphaba thought for a moment. What she was about to say was very much against her better judgement, considering just how much grief the little brat had given her over the last twenty-four hours... but even with all those past grievances in mind, it still didn't seem fair to abandon her in the wilderness and leave her to face down any reinforcements that would be coming to investigate. Plus, she still had the Ruby Slippers.

"As a matter of fact..."

For the second time in almost as many days, Dorothy Gale found herself cowering behind a tree and wondering how she'd ended up in this position.

She'd awoken, perhaps fifteen minutes ago, to a distant hubbub of explosions and shouts; with the witch's castle nowhere in sight and the sound of an obvious battle nearby, she'd at first thought that her friends had managed to rescue her and were now fighting it out with whatever army the Witch could muster. Then she'd taken a good look around and realized that not only was the landscape completely unrecognizable, but there was an army charging right towards her.

Acting on instinct, she'd flung herself back down into the long grass and hoped to God that somehow the soldiers wouldn't see her as they passed. Astonishingly enough, the plan worked, if only because the army seemed more interested in chasing the hastily-departing train than looking to their immediate right. The moment they were out of earshot, Dorothy had scrambled to her feet and ran as fast as she could towards the forest, vowing not to stop until she was absolutely certain nobody was following her. Thanks to the over-the-should glimpse of the army turning around and charging back towards her, this took some time.

Panic took her past the outskirts of the forest and deep into the trees, diagonally away from the entrance and away from the sounds of her pursuers. Eventually, she found herself stumbling to halt against the roots of a tree and realizing that she could no longer see or hear any sign of the army; unfortunately, she also realized that she was now so deep into the forest that the light from the canopy was almost gone, leaving her in dusk-like gloom. Worse still, there was no sign of the forest's edge from here, and thanks to the low light, no footprints to be seen.

Now leaning against the tree which she'd fallen upon, she could only take a deep breath and try to figure out what to do next. So far, there didn't seem to be any ideas forthcoming: after all, she wasn't just lost in the forest, but stranded in yet another strange and unrecognizable land, on the run from that rampaging army and likely the Wicked Witch of the West too...

Worst of all, her friends were gone and there was little chance that any of them would find her.

She was alone.

And somehow, impossibly enough, she was now even further away from home than ever before.

Dorothy Gale took in a deep, shuddering breath that sounded more like a sob than anything else, and tried to blink away her tears.

Then, she heard the sound of footsteps echoing through the forest from somewhere very close by - and getting steadily nearer. Edging around the trunk of the tree, she peered into the forest, hoping that it wasn't one of the soldiers, praying that it might be someone friendly- a hunter, or another traveller, or at the very least someone who knew the forest. Please let it be the Scarecrow, she whimpered silently, or the Tin Man, or the Lion; please let it be one of my friends. But glancing around the side of the tree, she couldn't see anyone, even though the footsteps were still getting closer.

She briefly considered calling out to whoever was approaching, but then she remembered the army that was still out there and no doubt looking for her, so she stayed put, waiting for the wanderer to step out of cover and hoping that nothing unfriendly had seen her.

As if in response, something laughed.

"Is there SOMEONE hiding?" a voice purred. "Someone playing HIDE-and-seek?"

The voice was unlike anything Dorothy had heard before, for it seemed to change as it spoke: at first, it was deep and thunderous; the next second, it was high and sing-song; then it was whispery and grating; then low and buzzing like an insect; then weirdly chorused, as though a dozen people were speaking at once; for a second or two, it sounded almost normal; and then it was back to deep bass again, with perhaps a few new tones of voice in between; sometimes the change of voice came quicker, sometimes slower. And there seemed to be yet another voice beneath those wild and chaotic swings in pitch and tone, but it was almost impossible to hear. In any case, Dorothy was immediately on edge.

Maybe if I just stay here and don't make a sound, it'll lose interest, she thought. Maybe the army will pass by and distract it, or scare it off or something...

The high, distorted laugh sounded again. "No point in hiding, SWEET little doll," cooed the voice. "I see your racing little heart; it's pounding so very fast..."

Oh God, Dorothy thought, heart pounding just as loud as the voice insisted it was.

"Showyourself to me, now... don't be frightened. COME OUT!"it roared suddenly, voice booming like a thunderstorm. "COME OUT, COME OUT, WHEREVER YOU ARE AND MEET THE YOUNG LADY WHO FELL FROM A STAR!"

Dorothy couldn't take it any more: all but wrenching herself away from the tree, she put her head down and ran for her life without stopping to get a good look at the source of the voice; she didn't know where she was going or what was no doubt following her- all she knew was that she had to get away somehow.

Hurtling along the crooked, root-studded ground, she could hear the footsteps following her, accompanied by the sound of claws clicking against the back of the tree-roots. Terror overriding all sense of precaution, Dorothy screamed into the trees "HELP! SOMEONE HELP!" She didn't care if the only people that could rescue her were the army that had chased her in here to begin with- anything was better than whatever was chasing her right now.

"What the Hellion wants, the Hellion takes!" the pursuing voice cackled. "What the Hellion takes, the Hellion KEEPS! And what the Hellion KEEPS..."

A massive hand shot out from behind and clamped down hard on Dorothy's right shoulder, spinning her around; at the same time, another arm snaked under her back, hoisting her into the air- lifting her slowly but surely towards the source of the voice.

"... The Hellion bleeds," the awful chant concluded.

Dorothy opened her mouth to scream, but the sound died in her throat as the monster's face dipped into view.

Two luminous yellow eyes stared back at her from a face that had been stripped of all skin, leaving only bloody meat and muscle in its place (Just like those cows at the butchers, Dorothy thought absently). Hairless, noseless and with a mouthful of boarlike tusks instead of teeth, it barely resembled a human being; the rest of the monster's body was no exception: quite apart from the mess of gore and bone that made up its chest and arms, the creature had no legs- just two more pairs of arms as bloody as the first. And none of those arms touched the ground: the monster was floating at least three feet in the air, its elongated lower body curling and twisting like the tail of a fish. Occasionally, the thing's last set of arms would reach down and thump the earth, producing the sound of footsteps that Dorothy had heard earlier. But worst of all, somehow worse than every other aspect of the monster that now held her attention, was the blood: the creature was covered in it, weeping it, bleeding constantly from every inch of raw muscle and leaving an oily red trail wherever it went and over everything it touched including Dorothy, leaving crimson handprints all over her dress and her face and filling the air with the dark coppery metallic stench of blood.

More than anything else in the world, Dorothy wanted to struggle. She wanted to wriggle out of this monster's grasp and run until she was out of the forest and back into the sunlight, or until she found someone who could help her, or until she collapsed. But she couldn't struggle: she couldn't even move. And it wasn't fear that was doing this- though God only knew she was terrified at that moment; the moment the creature had grabbed her, Dorothy's entire body had gone numb and still, limp and helpless as a ragdoll in the monster's arms.

"Sweet little doll," it said, almost tenderly, stroking Dorothy's face with blood-oozing fingers. "Darling little thing." It craned its neck to look closely at the captive in its arm, its head swaying from side to side like a snake; as it did so, something very odd happened: as it moved, the monster's head left behind it a trail of flickering, transparent afterimages; each one faded in about a second, but for every move the creature made, wether with its head or its hands, a couple more ghostly afterimages replaced then. "I've got a place on my shelf all ready for you..."

I'm going to die, Dorothy thought. I'm going to die and Aunt Em is never going to know what happened to me.

Then, without warning, a deafening volley of gunfire split the air; with the numbing touch of the monster still at her spine, Dorothy couldn't tell who was shooting or at what, but she could tell that the gunfire was from somewhere very close by.

"Let the girl go, Madam," said a strident voice. "I very much she's fit to be one of your dolls."

Dorothy blinked. "Madam?" she thought incredulously; her eyes flitted to the creature's skinless chest and realized that the monster was, in fact, a woman.

Meanwhile, the monster's face had twisted into a scowl of hatred. "WHAT THE HELLION TAKES, THE HELLION KEEPS, PATCHWORK MAN!" she roared. "I decide what is fit to join my collection!"

"That's as maybe," the would-be rescuer replied, "But you can't fight off all of us, Hellion. Give the girl up, or we'll be forced to open fire."

"I've faced worse than guns and knives and stitchlings and mech-things, Patchwork man," the Hellion sneered. "I've faced down as many warriors as this before, remember? Half of them made good stew, in the end; and the rest- the boys playing at being men- they're some of my prettiest dolls now. The little girl wants to be pretty, I'd wager. Don't you want to be pretty, little girl?"

Dorothy wanted to scream every variation of the word "no" she'd ever learned in her life. But in that moment, the Hellion pressed one long finger into her spine, and suddenly it was as if Dorothy had been transformed into a ventriloquist's dummy. "I want to be pretty," she said, her mouth no longer responding to her mind's commands. "I want the Hellion to keep me and love me and make me part of her doll family and stay with her forever."

"Good girl," the Hellion purred. "Who are warriors- be they of Radiance or of the Deviant Nations- to disagree with the wishes of a girl? Who would refuse such a sweet child?"

There was a pause, and then a familiar voice rang out across the forest: "A witch might. Feel like tangling with a witch?"

There was a tense pause, as the Hellion's gaze swept from left to right. Then, she sniffed the air- as if she could smell something even through the cloying musk of blood that surrounded her. "I'll let you have her... FOR NOW. You'll give her back to me of your own free will, though - the girl's thoughts say you'll be wanting these..."

And with that, she reached down and plucked the Ruby Slippers from Dorothy's feet; there were no sparks, no signs that the Slippers had magically resisted her as they had the Wicked Witch of the West. She simply took the shoes off, to angry shouts from her rescuers and incredulous whimperings from Dorothy herself. Then, without another word, the Hellion flung Dorothy away.

She landed heavily in the dirt perhaps six feet from the monster, her head thumping painfully against the roots of trees as she rolled to a halt; as she did so, she saw the Hellion turn and float away, her four lower arms sweeping gracefully as she moved - almost as if she were swimming through air - leaving only leaving a thick trail of blood on the ground and a haze of flickering afterimages in her wake,

Dorothy wanted to scramble to her feet at that point- if only so she could thank whoever had rescued her, or at the very least wipe the blood off her face. But she still couldn't move: she could only blink and whimper vaguely, struggling to force out the faintest sounds from her almost-frozen throat.

And suddenly, she was surrounded by hideous faces - the very faces of the army she'd been trying to run from. On the upside, they'd rescued her, so perhaps this wasn't nearly as bad as she'd thought it would be. And yet...

... Those monstrous faces... Dorothy could scarcely bear to look at them...

"Why isn't she getting up?" one of them said.

"It's something to do with that madwoman's touch," muttered another. "It deadens the nerves, you see - keeps them still and quiet until she wants them to move again. 'Course, it doesn't always work like that. I've heard some cases that last a lot longer. sometimes forever."

"You mean this is going to be permanent?"

"I didn't say that; I just said it might take a while until she can move on her own."

"You saw what the Hellion was like just then," grumbled another soldier. "She doesn't like her toys being taken away from her; maybe she wanted to break the girl before she handed her over. She's a spiteful bitch, to be sure."

"Watch your mouth, Haxford; there's a child over here, in case you hadn't noticed."

"Sorry, Captain."

"But what are we going to do with her?" a woman's voice asked. This one was standing just out of Dorothy's sight, and because her body still refused to move, she couldn't crane her neck to look at her. Again, she couldn't shake the feeling that she'd heard this voice before, but where and when?

"You'll just have to carry her," said the Captain.

"Me? Why me?"

"You were the one who wanted to bring her with us."

The voice was halfway through responding, when there was a loud whoosh from overhead, and suddenly, the dark forest was suddenly bathed in blazing orange light: the canopy was on fire, and something above it was burning through the branches and leaves towards them.

"It's the Vigilant Eyes!" someone shouted.

"Godsdammit, I thought that skinless bitch gave the girl up too easily," the Captain snarled furiously. "She must have smelled them coming. Everyone scatter- NOW!"

And instantly, the forest was alive with movement, every single soldier charging in a different direction. As they moved, the fire among the trees had finally cleared a hole in the canopy big enough for the "Eyes" (whatever they were) to descend: and so they did, lowering themselves into the forest and hovering above the ground just like Glinda's bubble had.

There were three of them: each one was an elegantly-made ball of ivory and silver, a little smaller than a cartwheel. As they drew closer, Dorothy could see that they had been carved with tiny cherubs and winged horses all along their bodies, complete with a sixteen inch-wide pair of silver angel wings mounted on their backs; in the centre of each ball, a delicately-carved glass lens sat, swivelling this way and that to examine the figures beneath it. Dorothy, for her part, was baffled by the army's reaction to these things: they looked more like toys than anything else, and their lazing, bobbing movements seemed too comical to be dangerous, so why was everyone running?

And then one of them spoke. "Deviation detected," it intoned in a pleasant, almost friendly voice. "Please halt and submit to the Judgement of the Empress."

"You have been tainted," said another. "Through the lies of the Treacherous One, you have been led to imperfection and sin."

"But rejoice," said the third. "We have come to cleanse you of all corruption and suffering, for we are the Empress's mercy."

A few of the soldiers stopped to fire at the Eyes, but for the most part, they were too small a target to hit, and those few shots that connected bounced harmlessly off their plating. Then, the Eyes returned fire: their lenses glowed a deep crimson, and a moment later, each one disgorged a solid beam of angry red light; everything the light touched instantly burst into flame.

For the next few seconds, the Eyes went on launching flame at the fleeing soldiers: from what little Dorothy could see, the soldiers were good at avoiding the Eyes' fire, ducking and weaving under the beams and hiding behind the trees, but she still saw at least two of them collapse to the ground in flames.

And then the gaze of the Eyes turned towards her. But before Dorothy had time to even think of the fire that would eat her alive, she heard that same familiar voice- the one that had refused to carry her - suddenly shouting and swearing in anger; in the next instant, someone was scooping her into their arms. Dorothy couldn't see who it was, but at that point, she wasn't all that interested in looking a gift horse in the mouth.

For a moment, there was silence as the Eyes slowly shifted their attention to Dorothy's rescuer.

Then, without warning, the glow vanished from their eyes and all three of them retreated back into the canopy, pausing only to extinguish the fires with jets of grey steam spouted from nozzles in their flanks.

There was a long silence as the army slowly crept from their hiding places and began crowding together again, making a count of the dead and wounded as they went.

Apparently, they'd been lucky: none of them had died in the attack, although "Aggie" and "Doorface" had been badly burned and would probably need medical attention soon. "It's just as well we were out here in the forest," said the captain. "If they'd caught us out in the fields or in open country, they'd have burned us to ashes in about five seconds flat."

He turned to Dorothy, a curious expression in his scar-circled eyes; he wasn't looking at her, though, but at the woman who now held her in her arms. "But why did they leave?" he wondered aloud. "Why did they stop when they saw you, exactly? You're not exactly deviation-free, in case you hadn't noticed."

As she replied, the woman gently shifted Dorothy in her arms, and as she did so, Dorothy got her first good look at her face- and immediately gasped in mingled shock and disbelief.

Her rescuer was none other than the Wicked Witch of the West.