Number Four advanced on the cauldron with the flaming spear raised, ready to strike. Seven couldn’t tell if her intended target was Two, or Five, or perhaps the bird.

'Yield!' It was Sorrow’s voice but she barely sounded like herself.

Number Four turned toward the sound.

Sorrow stood in the middle of the grove. Most of her feathers had burned away revealing the muscle and bone beneath. Her skin was pale, not with the power of the Goddess but with exhaustion and blood loss. Her face was a mask of rage and pain.

Sorrow had a new weapon from somewhere. It was blackened and ancient and the metal was flaking. It looked like the bastard child of a trident and a chandelier.

Number Four eyed the weapon uneasily. She clearly didn’t like what she saw. It gave Seven hope that perhaps she would yield but she advanced towards Sorrow.

'Oh just stop,' said Sorrow. 'See what you’ve done, see where we are. My blades are destroyed, my wings are useless, Number Two died again, and I’m stuck holding this fucking atrocity. Give it up. You can’t win.'

'You’re too soft to use that thing,' said Four.

Seven thought about Sorrow hacking a man’s hand off to make a point to the Boss. Soft was not a word that he would have used about her.

'Don’t bet your life on it,' said Sorrow, 'I don’t have to be happy about wielding a war crime on a stick but that doesn’t mean I won’t do it.'

The thing in her hands looked grim and unsanitary but it didn’t look like a war crime or an atrocity. 'What’s wrong with that thing?' said Seven.

'That’s the Gáe Bulg,' said the Morrigan. 'My daughter, Sgàthach, made it when the world was yet young. There were giants on the earth in those days and monsters in the sea. There is nothing in the seas like them now. These were beasts you could mistake for an island. They could stop up river mouths and cause flooding miles inland. They ate all the fish and trapped the people on the land. You couldn’t kill one of those beasts with a normal weapon. You would have been weeks about it.'

The Morrigan looked across the grove to the red haired woman. She smiled, looking genuinely maternal. 'Scàthach forged a weapon of living metal that feeds on blood. It is brittle. Even the slightest contact, the tiniest wound, and the barbs break off. They ride the tides of blood and use the iron to grow. Eventually they reach the heart but on the way they tear everything to shreds. Even the slightest wound is invariably and eventually fatal. The lesser the wound the longer it takes and the greater the pain.'

No wonder Four looked so queasy. But maybe she was right. Sorrow was a killer but she didn’t have a cruel bone in her body. It must cost a lot to use a weapon like that. And she was doing it for him.

Sorrow demonstrated her willingness by thrusting the terrible weapon towards Four’s face. Four parried it easily but Sorrow used the momentum to turn the harpoon and strike Four’s face with the butt end. Four staggered back, slashing at Sorrow’s body.

Sorrow was too close to dodge the slash. The burning spear head cut right through her body armour. The fabric cover caught fire and the grove filled with the smell of singed Kevlar and a faint undertone of bacon.

Four tried to press home the attack but Sorrow elbowed her in the face. Four looked dazed. The butt of the harpoon had caught her on the eyebrow and split the skin. Her nose was already swelling from the elbow strike.

Sorrow’s body armour was still burning. She beat out the flames with one hand, the other still on the harpoon. She seemed not to be paying attention to Four but Seven didn’t buy it.

Four tried to cut Sorrow off at the knees and Sorrow sprung her trap. She caught the spear in the fractal barbs of her weapon and yanked Number Four off balance. As Four staggered forwards Sorrow kicked out and connected with her solar plexus.

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Seven heard the kick force all the air from Four’s lungs in a sickening, wheezing gasp. He knew how a hit like that felt. It felt like you’d never breathe again.

Four did not let go of the spear, even as she fought for breath. She wrenched it free of the harpoon and staggered backwards. Sorrow followed up the attack but Four was ready and slashed at her, the spearhead creating a flaming arc in the air that Sorrow had to back away from.

Seven could see where this fight was going. Sorrow was reluctant to actually hit Four with the barbs. Fear of the barbs kept Four back. Sorrow had the reach advantage again but she was wounded and pulling her punches. Eventually Number Four would wear her down. But that wouldn’t win Four the fight. It would just force Sorrow to defend herself harder. This fight was going to end with both of them dead.

'You have to stop this,' he said, quietly, for the ears of the Goddess alone.

'Why would I do that?' said the Morrigan.

'If you don’t you’re going to lose both of them.'

The Goddess leaned closer to whisper in his ear, 'No matter who wins or loses, no matter who lives or dies, I will lose nothing. You are the one that stands to lose both of them.'

And the suit wouldn’t care. Where had that thought come from? Had Cutty put that thought in his mind? Or was it a warning from his previous selves that whatever didn’t kill him made him stronger and the suit didn’t care who else had to die along the way.

Enough. He’d lost enough people over the years. Friends, colleagues and lovers all sacrificed on the altar of the suit. Now that he knew where the memories were hiding he could even recall their faces.

The anger propelled him from the throne. He jumped to the ground. Behind him the Goddess said something but he wasn’t listening. Ahead of him Sorrow and Number four clashed again. Sorrow picked up another burn. Number Four dazed again by yet another blow to the head.

'Stop it,' he said.

They ignored him. Another exchange of blows. A burn and a slash on the thigh for Sorrow and a couple of cracked ribs for Number Four.

He stepped between them. 'Eris stop,' he said and grabbed Number Four’s arm.

She looked shocked. He couldn’t tell if it was the use of her real name or his appearance between them but for a moment he had her undivided attention. And he knew, instantly, that he had made a terrible mistake.

Sorrow was already committed to a thrust. He twisted out of the way, pulling Number Four behind him. The old instinct to protect her asserting itself.

He wasn’t fast enough. He saw the terrible weapon coming but he could not get out of the way. It caught him at chest height, tore through his jacket, hit something inside it, deflected off that and carried on to slice open Number Four’s cheek.

His yPhone tumbled out of the torn jacket and fell to the ground, screen smashed and full of black metal barbs.

Number Four screamed. It was an inhuman sound and it tore at his soul. She fell at his feet. A crumpled wreck with the Mantle of the Goddess dropping away. The black faded from her hair as he watched.

He crouched beside her. The wound wasn’t deep. A narrow gash that followed the perfect line of her cheekbone. Blood oozed out of it and he could see something dark disappear into the wound. One of the living barbs of the weapon.

Sweat beaded her forehead. Her eyes were wide with pain and terror but there was still hate there too. Her body shuddered in pain.

He wanted to say that he was sorry. That he hadn’t meant for it to happen. But what was the point?

'The Cauldron,' he said. 'We can heal you.'

'No.' It was barely a whisper.

'We can’t,' said Sorrow from behind him. 'It won’t remove the barbs. It’ll just heal the damage already done. All it can do is prolong the agony.'

Sorrow drew closer. Her shadow fell across Number Four’s face. He could smell her; the cooked bacon smell of her burns and the singed plastic of her body armour.

'Kill me,' said Four.

'No,' he said, 'I’ll find a way.'

'There isn’t one. I’ll do it,' said Sorrow.

'Not her. Lucky, you owe me.' Four’s desperate eyes pinned him to the spot.

He looked up at the Goddess, implacable on her throne, 'Fix this,' he said.

'There is no fixing it. And if there were I would not allow it. There is only one kindness you can do for her now.'

Number Four was pathetically light in his arms as he carried her to the pool.

'You remember my name,' she said as he stepped into the water still cradling her.

'Of course I do. I should have known you’d be trouble from the name alone.'

'I should have known that suit would be the death of me,' she said.

He let her float on the surface of the water. One hand on the back of her head the other on her neck, shutting down the blood supply to her brain. As soon as that knocked her out he dipped her head under the water and released her neck. Her body took one deep, reflexive breath of the water and that was it. He felt her pulse falter and stop but he held her under while he silently counted to 100. Just to be sure.