Sahir's Arc

Chapter 1 of 4

Sahir smelled the apples before he saw them. He had walked three days across loose sand to reach the market town, guided by that one thread of scent on the wind. His rider Rashid was inside the walls somewhere, buying spear oil and dried meat, and had told Sahir to wait at the trough by the gate. Sahir had asked, in the way a horse asks, for one apple. Rashid had said no. The vendor, earlier that morning, had also said no, and swatted his nose with a rag. So Sahir left the trough. The cracked saddle still rode his back, straps slapping his ribs as he moved through the crowd. People stepped aside for a loose horse with no rider. He kept his head low and followed the smell to the fruit stand under its striped awning. Red apples sat in the front row, stacked in a wooden crate beside pears and grapes. A chalkboard read three and forty. The vendor stood behind the counter. He was a small man in a brown apron, gray hair pushed up in tufts, smiling at a woman in a white dress who held a bunch of purple grapes. Sahir knew him. Chen Bao. The same man who had swatted his nose. Sahir stopped ten paces off, behind a cart of empty barrels, and watched. Every time he took a step forward, Chen Bao's eyes flicked past the customer and found him. The vendor would chase him off long before his teeth reached the crate. He needed the woman to stay. He needed her to ask for more. Sahir walked a slow half-circle around the barrels and came at the stand from the side the vendor could not see past his customer. Kallista Theron was counting coins into her palm. Sahir pushed his nose against her elbow, gently, the way he used to nudge Rashid awake. She laughed and turned. She stroked his neck. She asked Chen Bao for a pear as well, and then a handful of grapes, and would he weigh them out fresh. Chen Bao bent behind the counter to find his scale. Sahir took the apple. He took two. He was already three strides gone when Chen Bao stood up and shouted. The woman was still laughing. Sahir cut between two stalls, hooves loud on the stones, and did not stop until the market gate was behind him and the sand opened up again. He spat one apple into his hoof-print and ate the other in three bites. It was sour and full of juice. He had never stolen anything in his life. Then he heard, from the gate, a short clipped voice he knew. "That is my horse." Rashid had come out to find him. Rashid had seen.