A/N: I made this after I wrote a song about a witch hunter. I thought that professional witch hunters were rather interesting people, since their job was all at once grueling, tiring, and very unrewarding, yet they were extremely devoted nonetheless. So, I figured I may as well try writing in a medieval setting for once.

This series will be done in a set of short stories. I don't know how many I will be making, but I do have another one that I'll upload in a while.

The title is from a song made by Thousand Foot Krutch. I was thinking about the song as I wrote this, so I decided to name the chapter after it.

The term "Malleus Maleficus" is Latin for "Witch Hammer" (AKA "Hexenhammer"), which was a witch hunting manual written in Germany during the middle ages. Because of the language I selected for the main title, I will also use Latin for the chapter titles. (Not the chapter subtitles, though.)

Malleus Maleficus: Libri Primitus: MOVE

I am Father Desiderio. I am many things. I am a priest. I am a knight. I am a brother. I am a comrade. I am a servant. I am a warrior. I am a teacher.

I am a Christian, and I am a traitor.

I am dead, and I am dying.

Thirty-seven years ago, when I was still an acting member of Witch Hammer, there was a young but powerful witch destroying the German countryside. She wreaked wonton destruction, creating a swathe of hellish wasteland. Entire villages were razed, and the inhabitants were slaughtered.

That is, the lucky ones were. The unlucky ones were eaten, as evidenced by the half-devoured corpses that marked the demon-woman’s trail.

I, along with my two students, Brothers Ultio and Victorio, was dispatched to Germany from my homeland of Italy. We were notable members of Witch Hammer, and the German division seeked our help. Apparently, the witch had already been captured before, and alive and healthy, much to the pleasing of Witch Hammer and its doctrines.

That which was not to the pleasing of Witch Hammer and its doctrines was when the witch broke from her holy bindings, tore apart her cell door, and proceeded to massacre the members of Witch Hammer who were watching her. It was said that only after she completely consumed three and a score of holy knights and the better halves of several others did the carnage end. The survivors say they could not see the floor or the walls or even the ceiling of that damned holy prison for they were coated thick and heavy with the blood of their deceased comrades. Not only did she escape, she wrought terrible misery, shame, and woe among the brothers.

That was where we were needed. Although we were supposed to capture such witches to get confessions from them, it was saddeningly obvious that such a pursuit was beyond impossible. It was suicide of the greatest caliber. Instead, she was to be executed when she was seen, her skull torn from her head, the body burned as soon as possible, and the ashes buried on the nearest notably desecrated ground with seven specific holy relics. The skull was to be shattered with the hammers of twelve different holy knights and fed to pigs, which in turn were to be slaughtered after being bathed in holy water, and then burnt inside a cathedral. The ashes from that blaze was to be divided and buried in four different hallowed grounds and three different brined seas, with the burials of all seven divisions of the skull done in the immediate presence of twelve priests. It was the third most extensive of all purging ceremonies, and the first time one was to be performed.

We tracked the fell creature of a person for a short time. She moved slowly; it was her inhuman invincibility that prevented the German members of Witch Hammer from defeating her. We neared a village in the process of being annihilated when Victorio, in an act of rage uncharacteristic for him, charged into the destruction. Neither Ultio nor I dared move to retrieve him, for we knew that what moved him was demonic, and that if we were to try to free him from such a thing, we too would perish.

When one feels sorrow for having pessimistic thoughts he has had fulfilled, it is the most dread of all sorrow. I felt that sorrow upon the morn of the next day. We trekked into the blackened ruins that was the destroyed town and found, in the middle of the road, a girl, with the appearance of a child no older than of six or seven years. In her arms was my beloved Victorio, one of the greatest knights and comrades I have ever trained and loved. The brooch of Witch Hammer lay on the ground by him, as a holy knight of Witch Hammer is supposed to separate 

such a hallowed relic from his body upon death until his burial, and only if that burial has the proper rites. This means, that at least in his moment of death, Victorio was without madness.

I could barely stomach the sight. It was not out of disgust at the bodies of the deceased; in my own time, I have ended and seen ended the mortal lives of many witches, who are, unfortunately, human. The bodies that I have had the misfortune of handling are not as numerous, but they too are many. What betrayed my need to observe the situation were two other things. The first was Victorio’s face: it was streaked with tears and blood mingled in mournful matrimony, and the face displayed half of the emotions he had upon his death (the condition of the brooch told of the other half).

The other was the girl. I could tell right away that she was the witch we were hunting. It was not that she matched the physical description we were given, although she did. It was not that she was the only living creature within eyeshot, although she was. It was not even that her dress was torn and bloodstained, although it most certainly was.

It was that her teeth lay within the breast of my beloved Victorio’s mortal chamber. Her small teeth pierced through the chainmail as if they were swords falling into a vat of tar. Ultio and I did not stir. Our rage and sorrow soared—our rage at the witch, our sorrow at the desecrated body of Victorio—yet we dared not disturb the meal of the demon-child. We knew it would come to no avail.

After several minutes of the most terrible psychological torture I could imagine anybody suffering, the witch lay the body down. She stood and stared at us with the emptiest eyes I have ever seen and told us with a youthful voice that she could not eat anymore, and that we were welcome to have the remainder of body for ourselves. The demon-child turned and walked away as Ultio and I wept.

We buried Victorio, with modest rites, given our circumstances. Afterwards we continued on our quest; it would have been dishonorable to do return to Witch Hammer without complete victory or complete, even after our losses. Ultio took with him Victorio’s brooch. I wanted it buried with the body of Victorio, but I understood that the relic did no good to a dead man.

A night and two days passed before we found the witch again. Ultio could no longer restrain his anger, and performed an accursed rite which had been banned within Witch Hammer three score years ago. He took the brooch of the late Victorio, twisted the clamp so it was not unlike a dagger’s blade, and plunged it into his own heart, right below his own brooch. The act was something only heard of through stories to the youth, and I suppose Ultio had heard the stories less times than he understood the morals. The brooch, a symbol of the Witch Hammer and all it stands for, absorbs the valor and will of the holy knight as it is worn. It has been said that in the past, during times of great crisis, heroes among the legion of Witch Hammer would take the brooches of their fallen comrades and stab their own hearts with them to endow upon themselves the strength of the dead, as Ultio had done.

Ultio did not understand two things. One was that this was not a great enough crisis to perform such an act. The other was that Ultio was not a hero who had the strength to do something so considerable without recoil.

Yes, it did make Ultio stronger, and more focused, but not without loss. The witch defended herself in an almost automatic manner, and every time her palm or fist contacted Ultio’s body, the pain received increased twofold. At that same token, Ultio’s hammer was swung slower upon every swing. The weapon by which our guild has been named was reduced to the hazard of a child’s toy. In an almost tired manner, the witch knocked Ultio’s weapon out of his hand, seized Victorio’s brooch, and tore it from Ultio’s breast. And with the brooch came the heart of Ultio, the Italian legionnaire of Witch Hammer, which the witch devoured immediately.

At times, I wish I had done something then. If I were to stop the witch from eating poor Ultio, then she surely would have killed me. To die at the hands of such a creature is much more honorable than the way I have become dead now. Instead I stood by and let the desecration of yet another student’s body occur. I could not even bring my eyes upon the event from shame.

When she had completed her meal, armor and all, she walked up to me and spoke to me in the gentlest voice I had ever heard. Even to this day, I remember the exact words those young lips released upon me. It was an odd blend between terrifying and comforting.

She said, “Why are you crying, sir knight?”

I looked at her from my sitting place and answered quietly, “My two closest comrades, students, and children through faith have died by your hand. What reason would there be for me to stop crying?”

The witch looked authentically confused. “Whatever could you mean, sir knight? It is a lovely day, and we can play,” she said with a charming smile.

I then took the status of confusion as I replied, with a slight tone of sarcasm I now regret, “I never knew that witches and Christian-killers frolicked.”

Again, she held a youthful naïveté and an honest when she said, “What is a witch?”

A thought spawned within my mind, and I studied it thoroughly. If this girl understood what she was, she should have known who I was and what I was supposed to do to her. She would have killed me already.

I then proceeded to ask her questions about the prison, and all the villages she slaughtered. She told me that she was only looking for a friend to play with, but no one would do so because they were busy working the fields. There was once a boy that was willing to play with her, but she became hungry and accidentally ate him.

As for the prison, she let herself become captured. After she realized that none of the knights would ever play with her, even the ones who promised they would, she decided to leave. Not, of course, before filling her then empty stomach.

I realized that the spirit that made this girl a witch was not a demon of war and malice, but a demon of sorrow and spite. There was little I could do to kill her, and I knew I would die if I tried to escape so I made her an offer I knew she could never refuse. I told her that I would be her friend, and that I would play with her, but only after she promised to listen to my concerns.

It has been nearly two score years since then. I have traveled with the demon-child for more time than I care for. However, my presence as a friend has dulled her desire to devour and kill somewhat, so I at least have some calmness of conscience. What does not calm my conscience, though, is that the demon that controls the child has grown onto me as well. I have become a death knight; my soul transcends by body, and I know not how long I have been dead in the classical sense. What’s more, the sorrow of longing has clenched me deep; I often hold the witch and wish she were my daughter, as I have never had children as a priest-knight.

There is one good thing that becoming such a creature as I have which I can appreciate. I am strong, stronger than I was when I was not a traitor. That strength is something I need to finish my duty as a legionnaire of Witch Hammer. I have embraced the young witch one last time and skewered us both with my own sword. Without my cursed strength, I would never have been able to do what I did, as I love the demon-child. Now, I slay myself, the girl, and the demon which has wrought for us so much pain, all in a single action. My sight now grows blurry, and I believe I am to die for the second time.