I picked my way through the jostling bodies towards the front of the Harp Bridge. The crowds were thick, come to see those who intended to take part in the Great Games.
We had heard the last few days of athletes arriving in the city, from all corners of Thylea. Some were well known, with established reputations, like the swift Aresian, Cy, or the home crowd favourite Galen of Mytros. Others were unknown, bringing an element of uncertainty to their performance and so this opening ceremonial race up the mountain would be watched very carefully to give hints of who might do well in later rounds.
Of course as the famous Heroes of the Heartlands, we were the centre of a lot of that scrutiny. Ignoring it as much as I could, I made conversation with one of the other competitors at the front, a young woman called Xan. She has a good air of confidence about her abilities, so should be worth keeping an eye on. In fact as the gong sounded to begin the race, she fared much better than I at weaving through the crowds and dashing off, where I found my size a hinderance in the press of bodies.
One poor competitor even managed to light himself on fire in the crush and I helped him pat out the flames before I joined the runners. Swift as I am though, I had other plans for this run.
I called upon a nature spirit I had rarely communed with before and shifted my form into the lean cheetah we had encountered in the Agora. It's lithe form was like riding the wind itself and I bounded through the crowds making up for lost ground, seeing ahead of me the closing lead of Cy and Xan.
The ground beneath started to rise as we entered the mountain section and I began to lose pace, the endurance of the light cat not enough to keep pace on the climb, so as I leapt from one rock I shifted once more and it was a curly horned mountain goat that landed on the next switchback trail. With this form I managed to catch up to Xan and Cy, but not quite quickly enough to beat them to throwing my torch into the bowl atop the peak. Still, third is not so bad, with the poor start I had and for Xan, a newcomer to the games to have beaten a veteran like Cy would be a major upset to some of the bookies in Stygian Row tonight.
We chatted more as we regained our breath and she told me that she did not yet have a team within the games to join- I invited her to meet the others and come dine with us tonight.
One by one, the crowds came in, Calliope helping an Estorian satyr who it seemed had been hurt en route. It seemed there were not many more on the trail when a huge, muscled man stepped up to the bowl and turned to the rest of us.
In a booming voice he proclaimed that he represented the nations of Praxis and Themis, the nations of Sydon and Lutheria. He bid us to welcome his countrymen and in a crash of thunder and a flash too blinding to see exactly what had transpired, they were there. Competitors, steely faced and confident, almost contemptuous of the rest of us.
And with them, the 20 foot tall forms of demigods. Taleius, son of Lutheria and Yala, daughter of Sydon, named for the Titans the twin gods had captured and slain. Yala proclaimed her new title as head of the Order of Sydon in Mytros, her smile both beautiful and cruel as it swept over us.
Suddenly, having Gaius thrown out of the city didn't seem so wise.