Sarah Ythlim

Sarah Ythlim, a former human noble of Khamsin was the leader of Black Powder Rebels during the early years of the Revolution, organizing the Rebel activity and placing her agents across the Land to fight Empire activity.

## Characteristic

Sarah had pale complexion, grey hair and often wore black clothing. She also had a blue mark under her left eye and until the burning of Caero wore a ring with the seal of Khamsin on one of her fingers. The supple leather of her riding trews and boots quietly hinted at her wealth - not to mention the intangible air of command that graced her aristocratic features. She was aristocratically good-looking, though past her first youth. Already, she had two deeply graved wrinkles between her brows - lines that usually marked a thinker. Careless waves of gray hair tumbled to her shoulders, except for a black blaze at the front. Sharp, blue eyes seemed to leap from her tanned face.

## Personality

Sarah was stubborn and recalcitrant, but also determined. She had a haughty tone to her voice, befitting an aristocrat and was fairly stoic, rarely getting angry or panicking.  The Ythlims were always merchants, so they tend to see gold-and-silver reasons for everything - Sarah is no exception.

## History

### Early Life

Sarah's father had been a Trading Ambassador, one of the merchant-princes of Khamsin, which makes her of blue blood and part of Khamsin's nobility. Sarah's plan wasn't just to destroy the Empire, however, since Orcs, Necros or god-knows-what-else might take their place, but to replace it with a less cruel regime - she tried to make one in Prieska but Karrudan ruined all that she'd built up there. She formed the Black Powder Rebels after Prophet-Magus Karrudan connived the wreckage of she’d built in Prieska, and the death of her father, which gives her a personal score to settle with the voice of Tezla. Without the Rebels, Snow would probably be up in the mountains, ambushing travelers for a palmful of road-silver. It was **Sarah** who brought the Rebellion together and gave them a cause, and also recognized that Snow had brains, as well as a cursed good eye with a fuser rifle, the same way she took Sigwold, a jeweler who made fripperies and offered him real work to do. And while Sigwold, now the Rebel tinker, saw to the building of the weapons, she recruited folk to fight the Imperials. But unlike the Empire, she insisted on many leaders in many places - such as Eginhard in Khamsin and Valerian in Caero.

### Rebel Thunder

In 419 Tz, **Sarah Ythlim** brokered an agreement with the current kzar, Kraksha, to allow safe passage for the Rebel pack train of black powder through the Fist. To ensure safe passage and as a token of honor, Kraksha sent Grugh's warhost to escort Snow and Sigwold's pack train.

When Snow and Sigwold were brought to Varsfield in preparation to take the black powder cargo from Nepharus Mons to Atlantis, Sarah paid them a visit. Bringing with herself a near-perfect fuser rifle - The Lady's Hand-cannon, she gifted it to Snow since waiting for Dwarven tinkers to perfect the brass cartridges would be too long and the Revolution needed to act now.

When the Riders from Khamsin finally arrived to Caero, they met up with Sarah Ythlim and Valerian there, discussing plans of how to go about the black powder cargo, currently overseen by Snow and Sigwold in a quarry south of the city. They stayed there for two days, and on the second one, Caero was set ablaze by Atlantean forces seeking to weed out the Rebels - Tulwar and Blaize were the one who informed the rest after seeing the immolation start. Valerian had gone completely feral as he seized Affrem’s head - the innkeeper was the one who ratted out the Rebels to the government. An instant later, Affrem lolled in his chair, a red gorget of blood spreading across his robe from a slit throat. Wiping a knife on the dead man’s linen, Valerian headed for the stairs to get Sarah and Rikka.

The instant she got the news, Sarah was coming down the stairs, pulling a nondescript gray cape around herself. Valerian had also donned the floor-length hooded cloak. Along with smoke, flaming debris were already flying on the breeze, landing all over the neighborhood, setting new fires. Cries of alarm rang out as people’s homes went up. As the fugitives negotiated a kink in the narrow alleyway road, they finally saw why - a three-story house was well ablaze, thick smoke rising from the roof. No bucket brigade could stop the fire’s progress. Despairing wails came from the third floor as well, the window shutters had been thrown open, and a woman stood in the opening, holding two babies in her arms. Flames already flickered behind her, the mother’s voice was raw from smoke, screaming for any help. Sarah Ythlim stopped dead in the passageway, Valerian crashing into her from behind. Sarah was hellbent on rescuing the mother.

The Rebels formed a living ladder - on Blaize's idea - they lasted long enough for the trapped family to make their escape. The desperate construction came apart from the top down. Once the operation was done, Blaize nearly fell flat but Rikka flung her arms around him in exuberance and caught him. After that, they continued running away from the Imperials.

The Rebels’ flight was short-lived - they hardly got a block away down the alley before they ran straight into an Imperial patrol. The guardsmen stood five abreast behind a hedge of spear points - this was no arson squad - these guardsmen had been set out to plug this escape route. They were searching for something - or someone - Sarah, as the Rebels later found out. Fire, meanwhile, cut off the escape route from the back. Two guardsmen came forward to pull the females aside, grabbing their hoods. Sarah’s face and hair were revealed. The one who’d gone for Rikka stepped back, gurgling. Seizing the opportunity, Blaize tore his sword free and charged the line of spears, droppinng to bring himself under the shafts, rolling up to the guardsmen’s legs, and began slashing - he was intent on getting through the line and at the Altem.

The Altem got off one good blast on his brass whistle before Blaize’s blade punctured a lung. Returning whistles came from the distance — other patrols on their way. The pack of Rebels already burst through the gap Blaize had created, Sarah included. Valerian led them on a wildly jinking course through the webwork of alleys. All around them, though, the running Rebels could still hear the whistles - the sound even came from behind them. Smoke grew thick in the constricted passage, and he could see the redness of flames up ahead.

More Imperials came clattering in pursuit — a fresh patrol by the look of it, and they had a live Altem directing the chase. They followed Valerian through another set of zigzags, in the hopes of briefly setting back the pursuers - the alley they ended up in swerved through an almost right-angle turn. When Blaize and Eginhard came round, they found a pair of absolutely blank walls, smoke, and the rest of their party preparing to make a stand. Harolt, Tulwar, and Jon formed a rank across the passage. Harolt, the drover, looked scared, Tulwar looked eager, and Jon looked a little dubious. He’d had to give up his crossbow, leaving him with only a sword. Eginhard grinned wolfishly as he took his place in the line.

Blaize took his place at the far flank against the right-hand wall. They waited long minutes. Valerian’s attempted evasion couldn’t have taken this long for the Imperials to figure out. On the left, Valerian spoke with Eginhard, bringing something out from under his long cloak and putting it in the Dwarf’s arms - a lightning gun. In a swirl of black wool, Valerian then joined Sarah and Rikka. They were coming up on another intersection. Rikka and Sarah darted right into a cross-alley. Valerian, his pale hair streaming behind him, went straight. Hurt and limping, Ythlim had to be carried by Rikka on horseback out of the burning city, to their rendezvous point at the abandoned quarry south of Caero.

Sarah and Snow then argued on who should deliver the killing blow to Karrudan and also the black powder cargo to the floating city of Atlantis - Sarah was in no condition to do it herself due to her many wounds. It was then decided that Snow and Sigwold will go to Atlantis and Sarah will stay behind with Rikka. Before Snow's departure, Sarah gave him her ring so that fellow Rebels will be able to recognize their agent in Down Town or Atlantis. The ring had a seal of Khamsin and a bezel that contained black powder. Rikka then helped get Sarah to Venetia, where Themyskis, a Mending Priestess and a friend of Valerian, helped Ythlim get back on her feet before sending her off to Down Town, where Rikka and the rest of the Rebel forces gathered before Karrudan's assassination.

#### Karrudan's Assassination

Sarah might have been tired, but she stood straight as she conferred with her chief subordinates - Eginhard, Sigwold, Valerian, Rikka and Blaize. Karrudan would come forth at 3'o clock for the ceremony - that gave the Rebels some time to act.

After explaining the situation to her comrades, Sarah took Blaize with her to a room to talk about him trying to kill Valerian disguised thinly as Sarah, ultimately deciding to trust Blaize. She penetrated right through his disguise, discerning that he was, indeed, sent by Karrudan as a mole for the BRP's. Sarah then fully tipped Blaize over to the side of the Rebels with some careful talking. She then entrusted Blaize with the task of getting Snow out of the city after Karrudan's assassination. After leaving the room and confessing about his true feelings and role to Rikka, Blaize set off for his final task.

Once the deed was done, an uprising began in Down Town, with the Rebel sympathizers armed with black powder pistols and the rare fuser rifles rallying against Lord Scarbro's forces trying to squash the Rebellion's leaders.

Sarah and her personal guard made a last stand at the Mills of Circumstance, the inn that they were staying prior to the uprising. One end of the open space was packed with Imperials. Scarbro must have committed the bulk of his force to this spearhead, hoping to decapitate the beast of rebellion before it could rear up in full strength. Bereft of leadership from Sarah, Valerian, Eginhard, and Perrin, the uprising would undoubtedly degenerate into a simple riot.

The little knot of Rebel commanders stood behind a horn-shaped earthen breastwork piled up before them. They also had a flag of sorts—a bedsheet painted with a crude symbol. It looked like a shield intersecting a larger, darker circle. The person holding the pole for this improvised banner was Rikka. Attempting to shield her and the others from the gathering Imperial might was a thin line of defenders sheltering behind yet another street barricade. They hadn’t gotten their materials from five minutes of hasty pillaging - large barrels and crates had been moved from nearby warehouses. Heavy wagons had been overturned. Maybe some of the big tuns had come from the inn’s cellars. They’d even dug up the paving stones and heaped earth on their rampart, creating a sort of ditch or moat before the wall.

Blaize then joined the fight, having found an empty place on the wall. The battle array before them comprised a spear wall in the middle with clouds of crossbowmen at the flanks. Heavy bolts flew through the air as the flank parties tried to provide cover fire. The return volley from the Rebels was more ragged—but also more deadly. The bowmen had to stand to restring their weapons. The pistol-armed Rebels could remain crouched under cover, barely exposing themselves to fire. They hurt the guardsmen, all but wiping out those with ranged weapons. Their galling fire slowed the spear line. The Rebels bloodied the advancing Imperials, creating gaps in the line, but those gaps were always filled by men from the rear ranks. Occasional blasts of rifle fire kept the mages too far back to make themselves

People were running now. A great noise came from the Imperials as they surmounted the wall - part victory cry, part animal snarl. And then Sigwold, armed with an axe and a torch, hurled the axe, not at the enemy, but into the middle of the defenses. The blazing brand followed, landing on a pile of black powder barrels. One had been stove open, leaking a trail of black powder...

There was a sudden hiss, and the world vanished in a sudden, brilliant glare. Before them was a crater, blown deep into the surface of the earth. Around it staggered burned, blind, bleeding, and dismembered Imperials.

The Empire’s war machine had abruptly run out of momentum, and then a storm of lead sleeted into the face of the stunned warriors. Sarah and the others had indeed been holding themselves out—not as a sacrifice, but as bait to tempt Scarbro into committing his forces. The Rebel leaders had also been regathering all the gunslingers they’d sent out to spearhead the uprising. Young men with pistols were massing and moving forward, firing as they went.

The Imperial guardsmen, victory literally blasted out of their hands, tried to stand. They were the best-trained, steadiest human warriors in the Land, but human flesh can only take so much. As the withering fire continued, the Imperial ranks wavered, then disintegrated. Still firing into the running fugitives, the Rebels cheered a sight few had ever seen—an Imperial warhost in full retreat. The gunfire slackened, but voices rose in harsh argument. Some of the more hotheaded Rebels screamed for pursuit, eager to settle some more scores with the fleeing guardsmen, but Valerian stopped them before they ran to their death.

Sarah then made a big speech, congratulating the Rebel forces in Down Town and proclaiming the start of the Black Powder Rebellion.

***Black Powder Rebels***
 Major characters

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Rebel Thunder (Bill McCay), Chapter 3
2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Rebel Thunder (Bill McCay), Chapter 14
3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Rebel Thunder (Bill McCay), Prologue
4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Rebel Thunder (Bill McCay), Chapter 12
5. ↑ Rebel Thunder (Bill McCay), Chapter 17
6. ↑ Rebel Thunder (Bill McCay), Chapter 7
7. ↑ Rebel Thunder (Bill McCay), Chapter 15
8. ↑ Rebel Thunder (Bill McCay), Chapter 18