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By Emmanuel Williams

July 12, 2026

*

JEROD

Jerod strolled slowly atop the wall that separated two lands. To his left, an entirely female village of witches called Witchland. To his right, his own land of all-male warlocks, called Worland. Closer at his right strode a young boy, whom he had taken under his wing and had shown exceptional talent at spellcasting and the movement of objects twice his own size.

“Have you been to Witchland, young Benjamin?” 

The boy looked forward as his master did, and when he answered, it was with a voice of a boy four years older, deep and unharnessed. “Not yet, sir.”

“Why not?”

“Because of the treaty,” replied the boy. “But I must confess, I don’t understand the terms very well.”

“We hardly tell the young ones before they come of age,” said Jerod. “It is not of your concern. But the treaty is meant to separate our magic from theirs. They cannot climb our wall, and we do not open the gate to admit them.”

“They must have done something wrong, then,” he replied.

“That we do not speak of,” said Jerod. “We do not let the past breathe long if it is of wrong.”

Benjamin was silent at this. Gears working long in his own mind. When Jerod stopped, he faced the boy. It took courage to face Jerod’s scarred face shadowed by his long black hair, but he returned his master’s gaze.

“They are not our friends, my lad. Let us leave it at that.”

*

MORTA

Carrying an open basket of branches along the wall, Morta heard Jerod’s words. The structure was not very tall, and the wind was soft in her dress, carrying only dandelion and insects slightly off course. 

Emotion stirred within her, for she had long been untrusting of the warlocks who intimidated her people and cast a shadow over their every move. To the east they could simply find another plot of land to live on and move more freely. But they stayed for the resources and what Morta thought was a century old act of defiance.

Who do they think they are? I know nothing of this treaty this fool speaks of. All they do is watch us work and eat, sitting on their wall of authority. But what to do about it?

When Morta got home, she was putting her lengthy brown curls into a ponytail at her wooden sink, then into a bun, finally she unraveled the whole thing and had to grip the basin to steady her hands.

Furious, she left the hut for a friend’s place deeper into the village. She found Patrice lounging by the fire, visible by the hole in the wall that served as a window. 

“Patrice!” Morta whispered loudly. 

It shook the blonde haired woman from her reverie and she approached the window, lifting her floorskirts and hunching, as if a strong current of gossip was about to find her ears and give her something better to consider.

Through the window, Morta tried to relay what she had heard along the wall. And how it had left her with a numb hatred she now wished she could rid herself of.

“We should hex them!”

“Patrice!”

“But why not? There is no treaty protecting the warlocks from anything! Not a damned thing!”

“That’s what I thought,” said Morta. Eyes growing wide with incredulity and grasping the hay ledge so hard her fingers had slightly whitened. “If you haven’t heard of it, and I haven’t heard of it, then it doesn’t exist!”

“I say we get a third opinion,” said Patrice. “And if that witch hasn’t heard of it, then we give these boys a quick lesson in witchcraft, post haste!”

With that, Patrice doused the burning hearth and joined Morta outside. Together they went just two huts down.

“Agatha!”

They had whispered jointly. And a lamp slowly inched its way into the foreground through the darkness. For night had come upon the witches without warning.

“Patrice? Morta? What’s going on? What’s wrong? Has the devil risen within both of you!?”

The three of them giggled. Finally, Morta broke the mystery of their visit.

“I heard something walking along the wall, and did you hear of a treaty between the witches and warlocks across the wall that protects the warlocks from the magic of witches?”

“Uh…,” Agatha said slowly. “No.”

“One of the warlocks was telling this lie to a little warlock,” said Morta. “It was like he was warning the child about witches, but could not tell the boy what we had done to abuse our relationship with them in the first place.”

“So we decided,” said Patrice. “We should hex the men guarding the wall. For their distrust.”

“For their arrogance,” added Morta. “Join us?”

“When?”

*

JEROD

Finally dressed for bed, Jerod was just putting out the candle next to the small bed in his cabin bedroom, when an urgent knock rattled his front door. Grabbing his wand from the bedside table and donning a night cloak, he brought his candle to discover the reason.

As he opened the creaking oak, a sweating guard began to spit at him using words of panic and disorder.

“Sir,” he began. “Men are falling from the wall engulfed in flames. There is no sign of a fire upon the wall, and it seems to strike each man as if by an arrow from afar. But no one can see an arrow in the air.”

“Fuck,” said Jerod. “They wouldn’t.”

“Sir,” began the warlock at the door again. “I’m afraid they have.”

“Wait here,” Jerod said. Slamming the door and dressing as quickly as he could push himself. It was merely pants and a button up with a vest, but he left his cloak behind and left the cabin.

Atop the wall, he searched for a sign of the witch or witches that might dare break the old treaty. He hunted up and down, following the trail of men spontaneously combusting into flame, and falling down either side the length of the wall. There was an obvious pattern, he simply could not see the perpetrators in the dark with the burning causing bright spots in his eyes the closer he approached them.

Suddenly he yelled, “fight back!” 

At his words, men sent spells from their wands at will and at random. It was one-sided chaos. Some sent general sparks of confusion, others wound up their arms and conjured fist-sized rocks from the tip of their wands in the general direction of witch huts.

Those homes woke up and began swiping their arms in the air, launching chairs, tables, pitchers of ale, and walking canes. While the flame throwing witches were still on their rampage.

*

MORTA

Morta had not looked back to see the damage. She, Patrice, and Agatha had taken a short-term invisibility potion so they could harm the warlocks without being seen. When they had reached the end of the wall, they turned back and saw that their attack had grown into an all out battle.

“We have to go back and help,” screamed Patrice. The night had grown loud with cries, wails, and the sound of crashing furniture.

All was not well.

“I second that,” said Agatha. “We started this, Morta.”

“Let’s finish it!” Morta cried.

But as they rushed back toward the thick of the village, the potion wore off. Morta was in the middle of cursing a warlock guard with fire, when her hands became visible, then her arms. She could see a man stop in his tracks and begin moving straight in her direction.

Patrice could be fully seen, and soon the three of them were exposed.

“RETREAT,” shouted Morta. As curses came flying at their feet. But soon they had found cover behind a nearby large hut.

“What now?” Agatha asked.

*

JEROD

Jerod knew he had found those responsible. But he had to change tactics if he was going to bring them to justice. Or destroy them altogether. At this point, he didn’t care which. He had lost too many men already, and those remaining were struggling to come up with things to throw back at the witches. He knew some of them were soft hearted toward them, but he would have none of it.

“Anthony! We’re going over there,” he said. Grabbing the nearest warlock within earshot. “Bring every guard alive and meet me at the gate to Witchland. And tell them to stop being kind. The order is death. And we will simply put an end to the witch here, and now.”

“Yes, sir.”

Jerod swayed left and right along the wall toward the gate in the center. Simply pulling men with him as he went. When they finally descended the broad wooden stairs at gateside, he was just a hundred strong.

Lifting his wand as he approached the gate, with a blast it swung off its hinges, splinters and beams flying forward as they marched into Witchland. 

Every arm raised expecting threat after threat.

*

They were not disappointed.

At the sound of the destroyed gate, witches flooded the field before the wall and took the warlocks head on.

Poison flew through the air, killing a dozen warlocks at once. Fire filled the air in a cloud like a wave then crashed down upon a group of witches. A taste of their own medicine. Behind them a new wave of witches sent a sea of swords slicing straight through the air, another ten warlocks stiffened as blood fled wildly from their chests.

*

MORTA

“I’ve got an idea,” said Morta. “But it’s horrible.”

She was behind the battle at the gate with Patricia, helping Agatha cast random curses from the rear.

“Whatever it is, just do it,” said Patricia.

Morta fell back, and entered a hut, grabbing some dirt on her way inside. Lighting a candle and dumping peppercorn into a bowl. She poured the dirt in with the pepper and began grinding.

“Incantatem dormis. Incantetam corpus. Incantatem dormis. Incantetam wakus.”

When the mixture was a mere powder, she brought the bowl to the ground outside, poured it, and, still chanting, dropped the single lit candle. A flame grew immediately. It turned solid red, then solid blue, and the ground began to tremble beneath her.

Hands and arms broke up from beneath the village. All around her, the dead crawled forth from their graves. Skulls emerged. Torsos, hips, legs. Soon the dead stood before her, staring at her. Speechless.

“The warlocks…” she whispered. And the dead marched on the gate.

Morta looked back at the flame on the ground, slowly lifted her right hand to the sky.

“Rise.”

*

JEROD 

From the center of the Witchland, Jerod saw a white light stretch into the sky, it was a column of fire.

Around him the land was illuminated by it. And he saw them. An army of skeletons approaching behind the witches, who fled when they themselves had spotted them.

Soon they had all dispersed, and he, and the sixty or so of the guard who were still alive, shook with a cold realization.

They would have to fight them.

“CHAAAARGE,” he roared. And they ran head long into the sea of bones. 

The fighting became a physical struggle. Warlocks were tearing arms from ribcages, and heads from shoulders, but their enemy kept coming. 

The dead were brutal, they approached without fear and grabbed them by the throat. Some strangled, others went for the eyes, still others used their flat hands like swords and shoved them into the men, ripping out organ after organ in one great pull.

It occurred to Jerod that this battle had to end by upping the ante. If its death the witches asked for, then it was death they would get.

In a vertical stroke through the air, he summoned a figure who stood instantly before him. It was nothing but a black cloak, but Jerod could hear the master breathing.

The cloak moved at once into the air. A great dust fell from it and dissolved the dead like granulated sugar.

*

Soon the cloak had found Morta, and for her crime, she was taken under the cloak and was heard from no more…

*

In response to the revolt, the Warlocks closed off Witchland with an extra stretch of enchanted wall that encircled their village, trapping them in the land forever.

*

THE END