Dawn was a dirty smear on the horizon when the burning started *again* in my right hand. Not fire – deeper. Like molten lead poured into the marrow of my knuckles. I clenched my fist inside the worn leather glove, gritting my teeth. *Too soon. Always too damn soon.
Movement in the roadside ditch. Two figures, ragged and desperate-looking. Bandits. Amateurs, probably, driven to this by the same hunger twisting in my own gut. The bigger one stepped onto the muddy track, a rusty hatchet held loosely. "Easy now, friend. Just the purse. No trouble."
My hand pulsed, a sickly yellow light bleeding through the glove's cracked seams. The bandit's eyes locked onto it. He froze. He'd *seen* that glow before, or heard the stories. His buddy, lagging behind, hadn't. He just saw a mark hesitating and lunged with a broken knife.
Instinct, honed by months of this curse, took over. I sidestepped the lunge, my left hand snaking out. My plain, unmagical dagger found the space between the second bandit's ribs. A choked gasp, a hot spill over my hand, then he folded into the mud. Clean. Efficient. *Cheaper*.
The big one stared, not at his dead friend, but at my glove. The light pulsed brighter, hotter, feeding on the sudden spike of fear and violence. I saw the recognition turn to terror. He raised the hatchet, not to attack, but like a shield against the unholy glow.
"Demon!" he rasped.
"Worse," I muttered, and moved. The hatchet swung wild. My dagger, slick with his friend's blood, slid across his throat. He went down gurgling, joining the other in the mud. The light in my glove flared, a brief, hungry burst, then subsided to a low, throbbing ember. The burning eased, replaced by a deep, hollow ache in my bones and the familiar metallic tang on my tongue. Payment extracted.
I knelt, breathing hard. Not from the fight – that was barely a scuffle. From holding the *thing* inside me back. From the cost. Ignoring the persistent thrum in my hand, I ripped the coin purses free. Mostly copper, a single tarnished silver piece. Enough for a few days of stale bread and thin ale. Maybe a roof, if the innkeep wasn't picky about the smell of old blood and... other things.
The light within my clenched fist dimmed slightly. Sated. For now. Not by the coins. By the death. This "God's Finger" they whispered about in taverns wasn't a blessing. It was a parasite, and violence was the only meal that quieted its gnawing hunger.
I wiped my dagger clean on the big bandit's rough tunic. Above, the bruised sky spat down a few cold, gritty drops. Rain mixed with ash, maybe. The land had tasted too much fire lately. The ache in my hand shifted, a dull throb climbing my wrist. Restless. Already craving the next spark.
They called it God's Finger. Divine power? Felt more like a curse dropped on me like a hot coal. It looked like corruption, smelled faintly of decay even through the leather, and pointed me relentlessly towards the next conflict, the next kill. And me? I was just the poor bastard it rode through this broken world, trying to stay alive and maybe, just maybe, stay one step ahead of the damn thing's appetite. One bloody encounter, one dead fool, one grimy coin at a time. Prayers got you hopes. This thing? It just got you more trouble, and the stink of death that never quite washed off.