"It's no good, General,” Tordun said, and Quelgrum saw the albino was bleeding from many deep slashes and cuts on his face. “I tried to hold them, but there are too many of them."

"What happened to Seneschal Shakkar?” Erik asked, still firing single shots.

"I don't know, Sergeant,” the pale giant said, who appeared exhausted. “They hurt him badly, and he flew off."

Quelgrum felt a sharp pang of betrayal; if there was one member of the party on whom he had felt sure he could rely, it was the demon.

"I can't find the source,” Numal whined, as if in deep anguish, interrupting the General's thoughts. “This just cannot be thaumaturgy."

"It must be Prioress Lizaveta's witches,” Quelgrum shouted. His pistol clicked, and Quelgrum knew effective resistance was impossible. He wrestled with his emotions; only one course of action was possible; something he had done only once in his long life.

"Gentlemen, that's it,” he cried, as the flanking zombies began to spill onto the wide, moonlit road. “We'll have to surrender."

He turned towards the Priory and shouted, “Do you hear me? We surrender!"

Erik gasped, but the General knew that to resist further would mean death. Silence reigned for a few moments, and Quelgrum now smelt the encroaching horde; the sickly-sweet stench of rotting flesh made him gag.

It'll soon be over, he thought, steeling himself to accept death from a hundred slashing claws. I've not had a bad life, I suppose.

Glancing over his shoulder, he saw Erik holding his empty rifle like a club, Tordun trying to assume a fighter's stance, and Numal holding his staff over his head, ready to strike.

Then the zombies stopped their relentless approach, a scant arm's length away from them. Quelgrum squinted down the road, and he saw a small figure, blue in the blazing moonlight, walking towards him. He felt no relief at the fact that he would not be torn apart by the zombies; just a dull, sick sense of despair. Baron Grimm had been merciful after his own victory over the General's men, after Questor Dalquist's persuasive ruse de guerre, at his desert base, but that had not lessened the pain of his capitulation.