<i>OUTISE FALIA'S APARTMENT</i><br/>The sound of hoofbeats on the cut flagstone paths of the city are an odd sound... most of the city's roadways are naught but packed dirt or elevated canal-digging mounds, but here in the heart of the city the flagstone paths have been laid out to facilitate oxen-pulled carts.<br/><br/>The hoofbeats that approach now are rapid, thundering against the cavernous stone edifices of temples and city walls.  From inside the apartment, where all but one of the leering men were already prepared to turn tail and run, the sound can only mean one thing: a chariot.  And a chariot means soldiers... royalty, perhaps... which would be worse at a time like this IF Falia were telling the truth?!<br/><br/>They slip off into the night streets, perhaps waiting in ambush--<br/><br/>There is a cry of agony from the first of the pack, running together with the angry cry of a rearing horse-- the hoof beats are muffled momentarily as they come down upon... padding, of a sort... and the man's voice stops abruptly.  Scattered footsteps disappear into the night, seemingly in every direction, and there are the now softer clops of hooves over the stones at a slow walk.<br/><br/>"Shit..." a woman's voice... soft, gentle.  Perhaps even an older girl's.  There is the hiss of steel returning to its scabbard, and then nothing-- naught but the panting of the horse, faint in the night.<br/><br/>"You there..."  the voice could be directed toward Falia's still-open door.  "Is this your man in the streets..?"<br/><br/>If they look, they will see a strange sight... a horse with no chariot, bearing some strange leather contraption upon its back, laden with harness and tack that support a quiver of short spears and, on one flank, a black shield with some sort of bronze ring emblazoned upon it in place of a crest. The figure that stands holding the horses' reins, facing the doorway, is stranger still... Utterly feminine, but adorned with form-fitting armor over a toned, muscular frame, the strange woman wears a massive khopesh sword upon her back, and from the corners of her black and bronze helmet a loose, long tendril of fiercely silver hair peeks out.  She takes a step toward the door, but waits.