Set in the 14th century, three women accused of witchcraft are hanged and then drowned by a priest. He performs rituals to prevent the witches from coming back from the dead, however one of the witches takes on a demonic appearance and kills the priest. Cutting to a hundred years later during the Crusades, knights Behmen (Cage) and Felson (Perlman) choose to desert the war, after seeing women and children mercilessly slaughtered, and return home. They discover the Black Plague has swept across the land and most townspeople believe it was caused by sorcery and the devil. Upon entering a town, Behmen's sword shows his crest and he and Felson are identified as deserters and taken to Cardinal D'Ambroise who is infected with the plague. The Cardinal asks the knights to escort an apparent witch suspected of having caused the plague, to a remote monastery where an elite group of monks reside, capable of determining if the girl is truly a witch; if she is found guilty, these monks also know a sacred ritual that can cancel her powers, and stop the plague that is devastating Europe. The two knights agree, but under one condition, that she will be given a fair trial. The Cardinal agrees, and they set out accompanied by a priest Debelzaq, a young man Kay, a grieving knight Eckhardt whose family were killed by the plague, and the swindler Hagamar who leads the way to the monastery. The witch, a young girl later identified as Anna, shows hatred towards Debelzaq and forms a bond with Behmen.[4]
Shortly after setting off, the group camp for the night where Eckhardt volunteers to watch the witch for the first night. After a while Debelzaq comes to relieve Eckhardt, but decides to stay with him since his tormented thoughts of the death of his family prevent him from sleeping anyway. Eckhardt talks about his daughter Mila, who resembled Anna. As Eckhardt leaves, Anna escapes after attacking Debelzaq from within her cage and flees to a nearby town. During the search for her, Eckhardt has visions of his dead daughter and is accidentally killed by Kay. One man down, the group become less trusting of Anna including Behmen. The group manage to successfully cross a rickety rope bridge, after Anna saves Kay from falling to his death by grabbing him with one hand, showing an unnatural strength. The group enter the dark forest called Wormwood, where Hagamar attempts to kill Anna so the group can go home, only to be stopped by the others. Anna appears to summon wolves, who chase the group and kill Hagamar. An enraged Behmen tries to kill Anna, but is stopped by Felson when the monastery is in sight.[4]
Arriving at the monastery, the men find all of the monks have been killed by the plague but locate the Key of Solomon, an ancient book filled with holy rituals used to defeat evil. The men confront Anna, with Debelzaq beginning to perform a ritual used on witches. However, Anna melts her cage and reveals she has been deceiving them all along, revealing herself to be a male demon using Anna as a vessel. The demon plots to destroy the last version of the book so the evil can be free to cover the world in darkness. While the men prepare for battle against the evil forces, they find a room where the now-dead monks were writing copies of the book. The demon appears, destroys the copies and possesses the monks' bodies to use as weapons. During the fight, the demon kills Debelzaq by breaking his neck and then incinerates Felson. Behmen fights the demon and has Kay finish the exorcism which destroys the demon, but Behmen is mortally wounded and dies shortly after, asking Kay to look after the freed Anna. After making graves for their fallen friends, Kay and Anna depart with the book in hand.
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