Thane didn’t seem particularly inclined to just leave me be, and even if I could technically speak now, I didn’t get the impression my present appearance was going to lend itself well to negotiations.

Thane flitted forward, raising his sword to make an overhand strike against me that I realized I was now far too ungainly to reasonably dodge. Once again to my surprise, a single mangled limb stretched up at lightning speed, using its bone spike to slap Thane’s blow safely too my right. It was an immaculate parry, one that I was sure I couldn’t reasonably pull off if left to my own devices.

Before I could allow myself to dwell too long on that tidbit of information, My entire body was sent flying from the tent. At first I assumed I had been struck by something, but when I hit the ground and rolled from one set of hands and legs to another the truth dawned on me. I was running. Leaping really. The ungainly positioning of all my new limbs was such that if I had wanted to walk on them normally it would have been impossible. So instead, my new biology had responded to my fervent need to move away from Thane by using as many limbs as presently had access to the ground to leap away.

Four legs and two arms enhanced by magic was apparently more than enough to provide the thrust I needed for movement. Experimentally, I put a bit more focus into actually controlling my body, and found that it was easier to give general commands than it was to perform minute control. It was less that I had extra arms and legs, and more that I was now three people occupying the same physical space. On the one hand, I probably wasn’t going to be doing anything complicated with my extra arms.

Thane sprinted out of the tent, almost too fast to see, unleashing a flurry of strikes that would have definitely killed me if I hadn’t lurched to the side, and begun my own counter attack. Even a single blow from Thane at this range would kill me, but I was a living blender, parrying, jabbing, grasping and kicking at him from every angle, with no sense of timing or any discernible pattern.

So on the other hand, I was basically ganging up on one person.

Thane grimaced, being more and more forced onto the defensive by my rain of attacks. Disoriented was the best way to describe how I felt during the assault. The Hydra tongue still dragged behind me like a tail, preventing me from using my jaw to bite, and the means of my attack on Thane was such that I was almost rolling at him. The momentum and weight of my body assisted my strikes, while simultaneously spinning me around in a way that would make combat impossible if I didn’t literally have three sets of eyes.

‘Oi, wake up or piss off loudmouth.’ I mentally complained as the battle raged on. I was doing my best to kick and punch at Thane with my original arms and remaining leg, but I was quickly becoming tired and sluggish. Both things I’d rather not be when I’m fighting someone to the death. There had been a couple times when the mad flailing of my body had put me in range to bit at Thane already - but the presence of my Hydra Tongue had made that impossible.

‘...’

‘You know that we can hear each other thinking right you sandbagging asshole? Help or fuck off. Seriously what the hell is up with you?’ I mentally berated. I was lying - I actually couldn’t really tell what the fuck the damned thing was thinking - but I could definitely sense its presence.

Actually. Damned Thing was a pretty good name for -

“We forbid you from calling us that!” denounced the Damned Thing. “If we leave you will not allows us to return and consume his soul!”

‘You won’t eat fucking anything if we - his fucking soul? Really?’ I suppose I should have probably figured this out already given my previous observations on the nature of my magic and well… just how generally shitty this place was. But I hadn’t really wanted to believe in the existence of the soul just because I’d heard it mentioned a few times. Even if those few times were during magical enslavement rituals…

Shit. I eat souls. Okay. Internalize it. Accept it. Move on. Survive now, freak out later.

‘You know? Go ahead. If you help you can do whatever the fuck you want with his soul.’

The three heads of my Hydra Tongue jumped up, two of them visibly dripping a black ichor that I guess probably passed for blood in me. They immediately joined the assault, seemingly completely without heed for the tumultuous turning of my torso. They hissed and spat, and then spoke in concert with my newfound vocal chords.

“wE WiLl eAt ThEm aLL tHAnE!” the Damned Thing screeched. And I do mean screeched. It had subsided into a more normal tone of voice during our brief conversation, but it seemed maintaining that level of goodwill for more than a few moments was beyond it.

I could hear Thane curse under his breath, and I turned my mind back to trying to find a way to break the deadlock we were in. We - I - honestly couldn’t hurt him, though not for lack of trying. In the time I had been having my little detente with the Damned Thing we had scored dozens of blows on Thane, but all but the most ferocious simply glanced off him. Even where I had managed to break his skin it was no worse than a cat scratch really.

A break in the back and forth appeared and Thane and I both lurched back, watching each other. Gauging the others strength and willingness to fight. Then I noticed it, that nervous gesture I’d noted during my first ill fated attempt on Thane’s life. His free hand slid up to rub a thumb across his necklace, and it might have been my imagination - but his sword seemed to glow less ardently now.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

Knowing that Thane was completely without weaknesses was enough to free me of some of my worry, and the old frenzied hunger began to take hold. Adrenaline coursed through me, and I commanded the fleshy battle tank that had become my body forward. Like a man possessed, I attacked, now with a desperate need to drag down my prey. For the first time I felt my biology working for me instead of against me, my limitless stamina and drive helping me stay on top of Thane as we struggled. Thane began to jump away more and more frequently, and I tore tents and passing people apart with casual ease in my rush to chase after him.

I started to lose track of my surroundings, My focus solely honed on Thane, and the Damned Thing seemed to relish the inattention as we ravaged the camp and its environs. Everywhere we passed it would lash out, taking bites out of anything and everything that got too close. I should have felt bad, but all I could think was that if they hadn’t been moving to attack me - they wouldn’t have had to die.

The paradigm shift was slight. It might be hypocritical, but I was still largely unwilling to just murder and eat other human beings. But even I had to admit that at the point where someone is actively trying to kill me, all bets are off.

My blows began to draw blood from the beleaguered human I was chasing, first in thin lines, and then more and more as the enchantments keeping him strong and invulnerable began to dull. Finally, he was beginning to grow tired and I rushed to capitalize on it. I decided to take a gamble, thrusting two partially injured arms forward, dropping their weapons and simply grasping at Thane’s ankles like superhumanly strong children. He jumped, lashing downward with his blade. The two arms were severed in a quick spray of blackened ichor that stop as soon as it started - but I’d achieved my goal.

Thane could never hope to out think me - because really he was fighting more than just me. His triumphant attack left him open to attack, and the Damned Thing short forth latching onto his sword arm with a meaty tearing noise I was now intimately familiar with. It might be crude to say, but the look of shock on his face as his arm came free of its socket was immensely satisfying.

He fell to ground then, blood fountaining from him like sweet nectar, and it annoyed me that my mouth was otherwise occupied. Slowly, I crept over him, arms and legs finding joints and limbs to rest on with uncanny strength, holding him down as surely if I was holding a cat by its collar.

Then I rotated, all of the muscles in my body tensing in an odd approximation of a pushup that placed my actual head square above his dying body.

“You... “ Thane panted as he gazed up at me. Neither fear nor anger present in his eyes. Just a deep resignation. Unable to move he took a moment to compose himself, calling upon the last dregs of his strength.

“You will not survive the year demon. Already the men flee - once word of you reaches civilization they will not leave you be. You will be hunted!” Thane was practically screaming into my phase at the end, the vitriol in his voice clear.

“Hey, you attacked me fuckass.” I said, using the woman’s voice. The response seemed to take him aback. Like he wasn’t actually expecting one. His mouth opened to speak once more but whatever he was going to say next I never found out.

“dO nOT SpEAk. yOu WiLL tHAnk uS SooN.” crooned the Damned Thing.

“Never! Kill me and be done with it foul creature!” he retorted, clearly changing his mind about conversing for a few minutes before he died.

“BuT yoU WiLL. BeCaUSE SoON yOU will BE us.” the Damned Thing soothed him.

“bY oATh ANd bLOod-”

***

Three minutes, one soul and a happy meal later, I was carefully carrying the creepy glowing scimitar at arms length towards the tent I shared with Nadeen and Thing Two. I wanted to stop using my magic - hopefully to changed back in to normal bipedal me, but though my missing leg and chest wound had started growing back and healing nearly the minute I had started eating Thane’s corpse, the leg still wasn’t quite up to a size I would consider useable.

Also dragging myself forward on ten different arms and legs was way faster than walking normally.

Now that the battle was largely over I had the opportunity to really look around the camp. Torn apart would be putting it mildly. The marks of my passing were obvious, with broken tents and people strewn about the grounds along my warpath. I winced when I realized some of those dismembered people were still alive, but didn’t go to help. I wasn’t a doctor. I couldn’t help, and if I did - they’d probably just trying to kill me anyway.

Absently I pulled arrows I hadn’t noticed anyone fire at me from various places across my body, my hands moving autonomously pretty much at the mere thought of action. Finally I came to a halt in front of my tent. It was curiously devoid of battle damage, which was strange. I would have assumed that anyone who didn’t come to try and fight me would have rushed here - since the whole camp assumed Nadeen was my ‘master’ anyway.

Instead the tent stood as placidly as it had before I had left, with not a single bloodstain or cut in the fabric.

I debated turning my magic off and hobbling into the tent normally for a moment, but then Erwin’s haggard and pale face appeared from the tent flaps leading inside. He was sweating, and snot was running down his face from his nose as though he had been crying for a little while now and simply had nothing to wipe it with. Upon seeing me his pupils shrunk down to pin pricks, and he fell backwards into the tent.

Amused, I nosed my way inside, unable to fit my entire girth in without uprooting the entire structure.

What I saw inside was… unexpected. Erwin was there as were Thing Two and Nadeen. So that was all within expected parameters. What was out of place was everything else. The room looked torn apart like a fight had happened in here. All the of the previous owners knicknacks and furniture were strewn about the floor, and the bedroll was in a corner of the room like it had been kicked aside. Erwin was curled into the fetal position on the floor in a pool of blood that looked like it was approaching lethal capacity. He was naked, and missing most of his left arm from the elbow down. I’d gotten pretty accustomed to wounds like that and could instantly tell the arm had been ripped off - not cut or bitten.

Nadeen was similarly naked - which made me instantly feel less bad for Erwin - holding the aforementioned torn off arm. Or what was left of it. Blood smeared her face and hand, and when she looked up to see me hovering in the doorway of the tent I could see that her pupils had dilated so wide that the whites of her eyes were practically invisible. She was sitting in Thing Two’s shadow like a child with a new toy, and her health seemed drastically improved.

We stared at each other in silence for what felt like an eon, but was probably only really a couple of seconds. Then she proffered a hunk of gore towards me with one hand and quirked an eyebrow at me.

“Uh. The fuck?” I said without really thinking. Nadeen’s other eyebrow rose to match it’s neighbour at my question. Then her mouth stretched into a toothy smile that was full of about 2.5 times more teeth than a human being is supposed to have, all serrated and sharp.

“Oh so you can talk. Great. Let’s clean up and leave before they rally and come back for us.” she said way more calmly than I’d ever heard the bratty girl before. Then she added; “Tiber, go grab my things.”

Thing Two immediately trudged off to another corner of the tent, and that’s when I knew we were going to have a problem.

“Okay so your a cannibal now. Great. Good for you. But his names not Tiber - it’s Thing Two.”

"Whatever you say William." she said one eyebrow falling again, leaving Nadeen gazing at me quizzically.

God save me from fucking teenagers.