Rumors of Scales

For Spooktober 2024, word "scales"

“And do you believe her?” The sheriff thumbed toward the back room.

“I’m not certain I believe everything she says,” Lisveth said. “That is, I don’t think she’s lying. I think she believes it. But demon raiders? That’s going to take more evidence than the blurry report of a frightened girl.”

“Someone killed those bandits tonight,” Galen said.

“You killed a bandit tonight,” Lisveth pointed out. “That doesn’t make you a demon.”

“Strictly speaking, they’re not demons,” he said. “They’re Selks. They live over the mountains.”

“And they’ve crossed the range again, after centuries, just to off some bandits? Doubtful.”

Kayvin stirred and spoke at last. “How would you know? If they were Selks or humans?”

“Surely there’s a way to recognize them,” the sheriff said. “I mean, demons or Selks or what they may be, they’d look different, right? Don’t they have horns or scales or pointed ears or something? Fangs?”

“Fangs would be hard to identify in a running fight,” Kayvin said practically. “Anyone concentrating too closely on an opponent’s dentition isn’t going to survive to report it.”

Galen tried to remember his lessons at the temple. There had been a few illustrations, but they were obviously stylized, showing either narrow, twisted faces with fangs and pointed ears, or nearly human figures distinguished by their position facing west from the mountains. At least, it was supposed the artists meant the westward figures to portray Selks.

The oldest tales spoke often of them, but with some dramatic license. This confusion was not helped, Brother Toller insisted, when lazy translators simply called them “demons.” They were properly called Selks, which the more conscientious scholars usually translated as “the Not-Human,” or “The Others.”

“I think they’re most likely a rival set of bandits.” Lisveth looked at the sheriff. “And I wonder if there’s a bounty on them.”

Sheriff Algwire frowned. “Is that a proposition?”