The cold sun of early spring rose over the broken rocks and gentle rolling foothills of the steppe. Strong Flower liked the early morning hours. No one was awake to tease or ignore her, only the horses, warm muzzles nudging her for food as she moves smoothly between them, checking everything. She was fourteen winters old, all sinew and wind-roughened skin like most of the Blue Wolf people.

Unlike the others in her clan, she had her mother’s green eyes and crooked smile, and to the amazement of all, her mother’s gift with horses. She often wondered what life would have been like if her mother had not died the day she was born. Her mother had been shot by an arrow as she defended the tribe from a midnight attack by the more northern clans, the Buryats. The dozens of clans in this part of the steppe had been peaceful since that time, gathering every year for the nadaam, a celebration of winter’s passing.

When the Blue Wolf people hosted the nadaam, Strong Flower always handled the children’s race. While nervous parents dressed their children, gave prayers to the spirits of wind and horse, Strong Flower checked everyone’s horses. A tiny mistake like a nearly broken cinch or a cracked hoof could kill the horse or rider during the half-day children’s race.

 “Don’t take too long, little Horse Orphan, or the children will be racing home in the dark,” Grandmother said. The old woman, her hair thin but her back straight, with legs bowed and hands gnarled, never missed a chance to make fun of her. Horse Orphan was an old nickname. Strong Flower was never sure if it was because her mother had died defending the clan’s horses from the Buryats, or because she spent so much time with the horses that, Grandmother said, her husband would be a man who lost his sense of smell. She waved all these comments off, the way her father ignored the good-natured teasing of the Blue Wolf people. A leader was supposed to be strong. But sometimes she wondered if there was something wrong with her.

The cold sun rose and chased the dawn away. Preparations complete, Strong Flower stood surrounded by her students, the children of her clan, and the children from the visiting clans. Some were as young as four winters, some as old as eight. Each child sat on a fine-boned, shaggy mount. The small but powerful horses rubbed their harnessed heads against her or stretched out to sniff her as she moved among them, as if she were one of the herd.

She was a hand’s width shorter than most of the horses, shorter by half a head than the tallest girl her age, but strong from working with the horses. She hated the way her strange green eyes and light brown hair, nearly red, set her apart from everyone else.  When she was little and her father, the khan, was not around, the other children teased her. Now that she was old enough to marry, she cared for the horses, and helped the children who were competing in the race.

The children’s parents and her father stood anxiously a few yards away, but she couldn’t call the children ready to race. Something bothered her. She felt the steam of breath against her skin as she moved from horse to horse, her hand traveling along this flank, that withers, feeling under saddle and behind stirrup, her look hushing the children until all that she heard was the never-ending song of wind against grass.

She knew that her father’s concerned look was about more than late starts. The night before he had told her of the growing trouble between clans. One by one, he had said as they ate dried goat and drank buttery tea, the mighty Xixian nation would make a treaty with a clan. They would boost it up with weapons and supplies until it was ready to conquer its neighbors. Then the Xixian prince would abandon that clan and treaty with the next clan, and repeat the process. It kept them all suspicious of each other and ready to quarrel. Some of the clans would starve, as spring after spring the drought lingered.  Strong Flower wondered if her father was watching the people from the visiting clans for signs of trouble.

She scuffed her boots on the frozen grass, and squinted at her students. The other clans had gathered their children at the starting place already. Her father had crossed his arms, something he always did before shouting at her.

Some horses fussed or shifted their weight from foot to foot, telling her that the horses knew the race was overdue, too. Some of them eyed the grass, hungry, as they held their positions, their young riders fidgeting with excitement. She wanted to get started too, but she knew something was wrong, so she squinted and she thought, making her kinfolk even more restless. It seemed that Strong Flower could stand like that forever. Then, the third time Little Bow’s horse tenderly shifted his weight, Strong Flower saw what was wrong.

“Little Bow, your horse can’t win with a stone in his foot.”

He shinnied down from his saddle, pressed his horse firmly just above the ankle, and the horse lifted its slender, strong leg for inspection. The boy removed something from a spongy crevice of hoof without any help, his young fingers firm and careful.

Strong Flower looked at what he’d found, a snake’s rib, and then boosted the youngster back on his saddle. Her nose was just this year as high as the withers of most of the horses, and she wondered if she would get any taller. She was a head shorter than her father. Taller than her mother he had said once, and just as smart.

“Dead snakes are good luck,” Strong Flower whispered as she tucked the rib bone into the headgear Little Bow wore. He smiled back at her, and sat up a little straighter.

“Is the Horse Orphan ready to race yet?” Little Bow’s mother shouted it so the other clans could hear, and everyone laughed. Strong Flower often wondered why, if they trusted her to keep the horses healthy and the breeding lines strong, just as her mother had done, no one ever let her forget that her mother died when she was born, and that the bad luck of such a death, defending the clan from horse thieves, always followed her.  Sometimes Strong Flower wished she weren’t the daughter of her mother, who died so bravely, probably because Strong Flower couldn’t wait to be born. Maybe then she would have as many people friends as she had horse friends.

Strong Flower patted Little Bow’s leg and smiled. She had given up trying to change their minds while still as young as Little Bow. She had overheard Grandmother tell Sayer once that if she wasn’t the khan’s daughter, they might have driven her away to ward off bad luck. She thought then that nothing could be worse than being abandoned by your clan, completely alone. No one on the steppe slept alone, except in death.

Dozens of crowns bobbed as the children moved restlessly on their horses. The racing crowns were passed on in families, as almost everything was, bright silk secured with metal-laced leather bands that reflected the rising sun. Each little face showed red from the wind on the tiny bits of nose and ear that stuck out from fur hats and scarves and tightly bundled tunics. They would warm up soon enough.

Wisdom, Strong Flower’s favorite horse, carried her ahead of her young racers to the starting area. As they gathered, the children of the nearest clans mingled—White Camel, Drunken Men, her own Blue Wolf clan and half a dozen others. Excitement made the children a little wild—Strong Flower knew they couldn’t wait much longer.

The family of each rider clustered around their child. Some fussed with costumes, some gave endless advice which Strong Flower knew the children couldn’t really hear. Some parents simply stood with their children and said a prayer to the spirits of the wind and horse.  She remembered the last time she had won, when she was eight winters old, her fourth win in a row, and how proud her father had been of her. He told her then that children who won races grew into adults who could protect and lead the tribe. He hadn’t talked like that for many winters, and it made her eyes hurt with sudden tears.

Wisdom moved easily among the young racers, letting Strong Flower check cinches and reins and blankets and little children’s legs one last time. She was making sure nothing else needed fixing; a loose cinch had killed a White Camel child the year before.

The familiar hard hand of her father clapped Strong Flower on the knee and she smiled down at him from Wisdom’s back.

“Are you finished making us wait, General Girl?” Blue Wolf’s smile showed no sign of his worry from last night. “Mm-mm? Ready?” Blue Wolf raised one eyebrow and winked.

“I’m just waiting for you,” Strong Flower said.

Blue Wolf answered Strong Flower with a playful slap on the leg, and nodded at her—they would begin. His shoulders shifted back and down, and he strode a few paces from Strong Flower’s side, his large, slow movements quieting the crowd.

Blue Wolf spread his legs wide and raised one hand high. He held the starting banner, half a man tall, blood-red silk with the symbol for wind painted in white. Every child prayed to the spirits of the wind for the favor of winning the race. Blue Wolf raised the banner high and all the parents and trainers cleared away from the children. They were left alone with their horses in a chaotic knot on a narrow dirt path. Strong Flower held her breath. After her father dropped the banner, the horses would run a half-day’s loop along the trail toward the Silk Road and back.

Blue Wolf eyed the children and the gathered clans, enjoying everyone’s suspense. The children murmured a ghingo chant, fast and soft, their voices blending until Strong Flower felt the sound of it would carry her into the sky.

Blue Wolf dropped the banner.

They all shouted “go!” or “run” and the children’s short legs thrashed and their hands moved the leather reins and hurry sticks like hundreds of little pinwheels, and the horses gathered speed, their thundering hooves shaking the ground as the race cry of the children, “Ghoog! Ghoog!” filled the air. The beating of the hooves rose up in Strong Flower, she felt it fill her. She yelled out her encouragement until the children were small figures and her throat was raw.

When the children were out of sight, the aunties and grandmothers and the older girls, who all preferred flirting with boys to riding, returned to preparing food for the nadaam meal. Strong Flower felt a tug inside, sad that she could not ride along with the racing children. She missed her days as the usual winner of the race. She could escape the nadaam with Wisdom for a while, away from her father’s rules and Grandmother’s taunts, quickly, before the children returned, if she got away before anyone handed her a chore.

As she walked Wisdom to the edge of camp, Strong Flower noticed Sayer resting under a tree, his old, and wrinkled skin blending with the bark. Without opening his eyes, he said, “The children of Blue Wolf look like nadaam winners.”

“We grow great riders just like we grow great horses,” she answered.

Sayer rose slowly, bent nearly double with age, and shuffled to Strong Flower. If this were to be a long chat, she wouldn’t be able to go for a ride at all. When his slow movements brought him close to her, he patted her arm and said, “We’ve never had a better teacher of riding for the children, nor a better keeper of the bloodlines for the horses.”

“Grandmother says my mother was better. She says I teach the children dangerous tricks too early.” Strong Flower checked the cinch on Wisdom’s saddle, smoothed the skin under his bridle, hinting that she was ready to go.

Sayer waved his hand as if to remove Grandmother’s words. He peered up into Strong Flower’s face and said, “I threw bones after the cleansing ritual. There’s something you should know.”  His eyes shone with the same light as ever, but his wrinkled face was not smiling.

“Will we lose the race?”

“You will lose something far more precious if you make the wrong choice.” Sayer had never warned her of anything. His advice to her was always good, but until now had come from his earthly wisdom, not his talks with the spirits.

“What choice? How can I know?”

“This is greater than you, greater than the Blue Wolf clan, though I cannot see its shape. I have told no one else. Remember who you are, and choose wisely.” Sayer shuffled away, back to his thinking tree.