HH4节译：折翼雄鹰——黑暗年代中的忠诚者们

In the aftermath of the Dropsite massacre, the Imperium was plunged into a period of anarchy that future historians would know as the 'Age of Darkness'. To those still loyal to Terra, all had at a stroke been cast into confusion, for none could tell who was ally and who Traitor, and so grievous a blow had been dealt, it called into question the Imperium's survival itself Increasingly, the Warp was in turmoil, making voyages across the void hazardous and protracted, while communication by asrrotelepathy over any extended distance was all but impossible. This left the defenders of the Imperium sundered from each other, shorn of direct contact and separated not simply by distance, but by insurmountable hazards and vulnerable to attack.

在登陆点大屠杀之后，帝国进入了一段被后世史学家称为“黑暗年代”的混乱时期。对那些忠于帝国的人而言，一切都一下子陷入了混乱中，没人能区分出叛徒和盟友，而且在受到了如此严重的打击之后，人们也越来越质疑帝国本身还能否存续下去。亚空间也陷入了动荡，穿越虚空的航程变得危险且被拖延，任何远距离的星语通讯都变得不可能。这让帝国的保卫者们彼此分离，彼此缺乏直接接触，而且分隔开他们的也不仅是距离，更是无法克服的危险和更易遭受的攻击。

The Disposition of the Loyalist Legions 

忠诚军团的部署

For Rogal Dorn, on whose shoulders the fate of Terra and possibly the entire Imperium rested, this was a period of intense frustration as he attempted to assay his forces and coordinate their stand. Dorn had committed the bulk of his own Legion's fleet to the retribution force sent to Isstvan to confront the rebels, but it had become stranded by the tumultuous conditions in the Warp and then attacked by the Traitor Iron Warriors. Though ordered to return to Terra with all possible speed, Dorn's Legion was far from a coherent force as individual vessels struggled through the raging Empyrean, arriving at the Sol System in ragged and wounded flotillas instead of the glorious, hundreds-strong fleet that had departed months before. Though the remnants of the Imperial Fists at Terra benefitted from the vast military assets located there, including such elite forces as the Legio Custodes, and the powerful Armada Imperialis Battlefleet Solar-based Saturnyne shipyards. Mars, however, having risen in civil war in support of the Warmaster, was now forbidden to them, and worse yet had become a deadly thorn in the Loyalists' side, needing constant watchful blockade, and so further diverted Dorn's attention, and the decision was taken for him to concentrate on building Terras defences for the inevitable onslaught to come.

对于罗格 多恩，这位肩负着泰拉乃至可能是整个帝国的命运的帝国禁卫官而言，这是一段极其令人受挫的时期，他要努力检验自己的部队并确定他们的立场。多恩将自己的帝国之拳军团的大部分舰队编入了前去伊斯特万星系讨伐叛军的惩戒部队，但他们受困于亚空间纷乱的环境，并在之后遭到了钢铁勇士叛军的攻击。尽管被命令尽快返回泰拉，但多恩的军团并非一支连贯完整的力量，因为仍有个别舰船在汹涌的至高天（浪潮）中挣扎，最终返回太阳星系的是一支受损残破的小型舰队，而非数个月前出发时那支拥有数百艘战舰荣耀的舰队。虽然泰拉上的帝拳余部能够从太阳星系庞大的军事资源中受益，而且其中还包括诸如禁卫军团和驻扎于土星船坞中的强大的帝国战争舰队之类的精锐力量，但火星已经在内战中支持了战帅，它现在成为了泰拉的阻碍，而且更严峻的是，火星已经成为了刺入忠诚派的一根致命利刺，帝国需要对它进行持续的监视封锁，这进一步分散了多恩的注意力，不过多恩依旧决心专注于构建泰拉防御体系以应对必然到来的屠杀血战。

What little Lord Dorn knew of the calamitous events that had unfolded at Isstvan came directly from the Primarch Corax, Lord of the Raven Guard. Upon breaking free of the bloodshed of the Dropsite massacre, Corax had led the shattered remnants of his Legion in a ninetyeight day battle for survival, culminating in its miraculous rescue from the very jaws of the foe. Ignorant of the extent of the Warmaster's betrayal and aware that Horus might expect him to immediately return to his Legion's home world of Deliverance to fortify and regroup, Corax made directly through the turbulent Warp for Terra, and there recounted the awful scope of the Dropsite massacre. Having done so, Corax then took the last few thousand of his warriors home with the desperate hope of rebuilding his ravaged command.

多恩尊主发生在伊斯特万星系中的惨剧知晓不多，信息则直接来自于暗鸦守卫之主——原体克拉克斯。一经从登陆点大屠杀的血腥战场上突出重围，克拉克斯便率领破碎的军团残部进行了一场九十八天的生存之战，并最终从敌人的杀戮巨口中奇迹般地获救。克拉克斯尚不知晓战帅叛变的严重程度，也意识到荷鲁斯可能期望他马上赶回军团母星拯救世界世界以进行修整和重组，于是他直接穿越了动荡的亚空间前往泰拉，向帝国复述了登陆点大屠杀的恐怖战况。在完成这一切之后，怀着重建军团那惨遭蹂躏的指挥体系的渺小希望，克拉克斯率领仅剩的数千名战士返回母星。

Shattered Legions

破碎的诸军团

Of the other Legions betrayed during the Dropsite massacre, still less was known for certain, Corax had confirmed the bitter news of the death of his brother Ferrus Manus of the Xth Legion at the hands of their brother Fulgrim of the Emperor’s Children, news that had shaken Malcador and the members of the Council of Terra to the core. Of the Iron Hands Legion itself it was known that many had been driven to stark madness by witnessing their father's end and thrown themselves wholesale into the crucible of war as if to absolve their loss in their own deaths. Yet, a substantial number of Iron Hands Legionaries had extricated themselves from the massacre, and while few had made it off the surface, many more had survived the calamitous void ambush of the Legion's fleet, breaking away and scattering across the stars. Some would form isolationist bands, fighting their own private wars against the Traitors, such as the infamous 'Red Talons' of Autek Mor, or refuse any master save their own will as did the company known to some records as the 'Heart of Stone'. Others, such as those who came to follow Shadrak Meduson, would form a series of ad-hoc, cell-structured forces slowly cohering into a single loosely knit organisation; a shattered Legion army shot through with elements of other forces that had been wrecked by the base treachery at Isstvan.

对于登陆点大屠杀中其他遭到背叛的军团，帝国对于他们的确切情况仍旧知之甚少。克拉克斯确认了他的兄弟费鲁斯 马努斯惨遭帝皇之子原体、他们的兄弟福格瑞姆杀害这一令人痛苦的消息，这震惊了马卡多和泰拉议会的成员们。对于钢铁之手军团，帝国所知道的是：许多军团战士目睹父亲的阵亡而陷入全然的疯狂，他们完全把自己抛入残酷的战争中，仿佛是要用自己的死亡来为过失赎罪。为数众多的钢铁之手战士都从登陆点大屠杀中逃出生天，虽然星球地表几乎没有人能逃离，但仍有很多人从叛军舰队在太空中的灾难性伏击中幸存下来，他们突出重围，逃散到群星间。（其中）某些人组成了孤立的战帮，独自与叛军交战，比如著名的“红爪”奥塔克 摩尔，也有某些人拒绝效忠任何主子，按照自己的意愿行事，某些记录里称这个连队为“铁石之心”。而其他人，比如追随沙达克 美杜森的那些战士们组成了一系列临时的小型部队，他们渐渐凝聚成了一个松散的组织：破碎军团；破碎军团部队由被伊斯特万的背叛所摧毁的军团的分队组成。

Of the fate of the Legiones Astartes Salamanders, still less was known. Witnesses had watched in horror as the entire sector in which the last of the XVIIIth Legion had fought was consumed in atomic fire. Of all three Legions betrayed at the Dropsite massacre, the Salamanders suffered the worst, scant few of their number escaping. Of these, most would join the bitter shadow war against the Traitors either as part of shattered Legion warbands, or more rarely as coherent forces of their own entirely, such as those who followed the so-called 'Prophet of Fire' at the Siege of Mezoa and the liberation of Goth, while the small guard force of Nocturne acted in the aggressive defence of their native region in accordance to their oaths, continuing to raise recruits in their Primarch's name and their Legion's traditions unchecked. Of the Primarch Vulkan, it was assumed through much of the Age of Darkness that he had perished.

对于火蜥蜴军团的命运我们仍然知之甚少。目击者们惊恐地看到第十八军团的最后一个战斗区域被原子火焰整片地焚毁。在于登陆点大屠杀中遭到背叛的三个军团里，火蜥蜴受损最为严重，军团中几乎无人逃离。大多数幸存者都参与到了对抗叛军的苦涩的暗影战争当中，他们要么是加入了破碎军团的战帮，要么就是加入了完全由他们自己组成的完整部队当中，这种情况更为罕见，比如参与了梅左阿攻城战和Goth解放行动的所谓“火焰信徒”们。少量保卫夜曲星的军团守备部队恪守了自己的誓言，在当地进行积极防御，并且继续不受约束地以原体之名按军团传统征召新兵。至于原体伏尔甘，据推测他在黑暗年代的大部分时期都处于死亡状态。

The Loyalists Scattered

分散的忠诚者

It might have been assumed then, that the defence of the wider Imperium might have fallen to others whose Legions held equal or greater power to Dorn's own, but who had not felt the scourge of the Dropsite massacre. The most obvious candidate for this supposition perhaps was the indomitable Roboute Guilliman and the Ultramarines, who in number ranked above all other Legions. Here too the fell genius of the Warmaster was revealed. In the months before the Isstvan III Atrocity, when Horus still concealed the treachery that had consumed his soul, the Lord of Ultramar and almost the entirety of the XIIIth Legion were ordered by Horus back to the Eastern Fringe to muster in the Veridian system to counter an anticipated attack by the Orks of the Ghaslahk Empire. The Ultramarines Legion was completely beyond communication when the Traitor's hand struck there in the guise of a bloody assault by the Word Bearers and, unknown to Terra, after this Guilliman had himself reached the awful conclusion that the Throne world had fallen.

帝国在当时可能假设：更广阔的疆域内的防御任务已经落到了其他那些实力堪比甚至超过帝国之拳且并未遭受登陆点大屠杀灾难的军团身上。这一假设最明显的候选人是不屈不挠的罗伯特 基里曼和极限战士军团，他们的数量冠绝所有军团。而战帅的堕落天才也在这里显露出来，早在伊斯特万三号惨剧爆发数月之前，荷鲁斯依旧掩盖着那吞噬了他灵魂的叛乱之时，奥特拉玛之主和几乎整个第十三军团都被战帅命令返回东部边境，在Veridian星系进行集结以对抗预期中来自Ghaslahk兽人帝国的进攻。当叛军们打着怀言者友军的幌子发动血腥进攻时，极限战士军团已经完全与帝国失联，泰拉对他们一无所知，此事之后基里曼本人也只能得出一个残酷的结论：王座世界已然沦陷。

The feared Blood Angels Legion too were beyond Terra's reach, for in preparation for his betrayal, Horus had met with his brother Primarch Sanguinius and tasked him and the bulk of his Legion with pacifying the Signus Cluster, and as with other such orders, this too was a trap. The Blood Angels would not emerge from that terrible war until much later, and when they did, would be transfigured by the experience. For now at least, the status of the sons of Sanguinius was unknown to Rogal Dorn, and he had little choice but to assume his brother Primarch would not be able to aid him in the defence of Terra.

可畏的圣血天使军团也在泰拉的接触范围之外。在为自己的叛变做准备时，荷鲁斯便与自己的原体兄弟圣吉列斯进行了会面，派遣他和圣血天使军团的主力去镇压西格纳斯星群（的叛乱），而就像其他的同类命令一样，这也是一个陷阱。圣血天使们不久之后便会遭遇一场恶战，而这场战争也会改变他们。至少到目前为止，罗格 多恩并不清楚圣吉列斯子嗣们的情况，他几乎毫无选择，只能假定自己的原体兄弟无法在泰拉防御战中伸出援手。

The status of the Dark Angels was also largely unknown to their fellows, the I Legion having been deployed far to the galactic east across the dark frontier of the Shield Worlds to quell trouble there for several years. Whether this war had also been engineered by Horus as a means of ensuring the Dark Angels were far away from Isstvan when his betrayal was unveiled or whether its enigmatic Primarch Lion Eljonson had motivations of his own for this is unknown. Whatever the truth, the Dark Angels would become aware only after the fact of the Dropsite massacre of the catastrophe that had unfolded, and would not play their full part until their savage confrontation with the Traitor Night Lords during the Thramas Crusade. Until then, the Dark Angels would remain consigned to the outer void, and Terra and the core worlds of the Imperium beyond their aid.

黑暗天使军团的状况很大程度上也不被兄弟军团们所知，（因为）第一军团多年之前就已经被部署到遥远的银河东部，他们要在此处盾卫世界的黑暗前线解决各种威胁。至于这场战争是荷鲁斯确保在自己发动叛乱时黑暗天使远离伊斯特万的手段，还是令人难以捉摸的黑暗天使原体莱昂 艾尔庄森出于他本人的意愿发动的，我们不得而知。但无论真相如何，只有在登陆点大屠杀已成定局之后，黑暗天使军团才会得知这场惨剧的发生，而且直到他们在萨拉马斯远征中与午夜领主叛军们爆发残酷的冲突之后，第一军团才会发挥出他们的全部作用。但直到此时，黑暗天使军团仍然是在外环虚空中进行战斗，泰拉与帝国的核心世界尚在他们的驰援范围之外。

Despite the silence of both Guilliman and the Lion, Dorn had some limited success communicating with others of his brother Primarchs that yet remained loyal. The Wolf Lord Leman Russ, Primarch of the VIth Legion, had previously been tasked with calling his brother Magnus the Red of the Thousand Sons to account for the crime of using his psychic powers against the Emperor's direct proscription. Again showing his far-reaching cunning, the Warmaster had intervened and manipulated Russ into changing his mission from bringing Magnus back to Terra alive to bringing him back dead —if at all— and purging his Legion. The battle that followed was an apocalyptic one, and despite the allied forces of the Sisters of Silence and Legio Custodes that fought alongside the Space Wolves, the VIth Legion took severe losses in the action, while their enemy was all but destroyed. Having razed the Thousand Sons home world of Prospero and driven the defeated Magnus and the remnants of his Legion to take sanctuary where none could follow, Russ had retreated to Alaxxes to bind his Legions wounds and, after the civil war broke out, had established contact with his brother, Jaghatai Khan.

尽管基里曼和莱昂失联，但多恩还是与其他依旧保持忠诚的原体们取得了有限的成功联系。野狼之主，第六军团原体黎曼 鲁斯之前被命令去带回他的兄弟——千子军团的原体马格努斯，后者要为他违背帝皇的直接禁令使用灵能力量的罪行承担责任。但战帅再一次展现出了他的阴险狡诈，他干涉并操纵了鲁斯，让太空野狼的任务从逮捕马格努斯变为了处决马格努斯并带回遗体，而且倘若有可能的话，也要把千子军团一并诛灭。之后的战争是一场恐怖的灾难，尽管太空野狼得到了寂静修女和禁卫军团的协助，但第六军团仍旧在战斗损失惨重。野狼们彻底摧毁了千子军团的母星普罗斯佩罗，战败的马格努斯和千子军团的残军被驱逐到了无人能够追踪到的庇护所中。鲁斯则撤退到阿莱克西斯星云让军团进行重整恢复，并且在内战爆发后与他的兄弟察合台可汗建立了联系。

The Lord of the White Scars and his Vth Legion had themselves been engaged against Orks in the Chondax system, not far from the Space Wolves, and when the Space Wolves came under direct assault by a formidable Alpha Legion fleet and in dire need of reinforcement, the White Scars came to their aid. When at last the storms relented just enough to allow tenuous contact between the Khan's fleet's astropaths and Terra, Dorn,appraising the situation in light of the ongoing war instructed that Russ should draw the Alpha Legion fleet away into the depths of the void.

白疤之主原本和他的第五军团在Chondax星系中对抗兽人，他们距离太空野狼并不遥远。当太空野狼军团遭到可怖的阿尔法军团舰队的直接进攻并急需援助时，白色伤疤军团前去救援。当亚空间风暴最终减弱到足以让可汗的舰队与泰拉建立微弱的星语联系之后，评估正在进行的战争局势的多恩指示鲁斯应该把阿尔法军团的舰队拖到虚空深处。

War was now spread the length and breadth of a chaotic and now largely unseen Imperium, and as far as Lord Dorn and the Sigillite were concerned, the Imperial Fists alone of all the Legiones Astanes would have to shoulder the burden of the defence of the Throne world. Until such time as the storms relented or those Legions still unknowingly enacting the Warmaster's duplicitous orders could fight their way through them, the defenders of Terra would stand alone while around them the galaxy burned.

这场战争现在蔓延到了混乱的长度和广度，而且帝国在很大程度上并不能看清这场战争的恶劣程度。对多恩和掌印者马卡多而言，所有阿斯塔特军团中只有帝国之拳能够承担防卫王座世界的重任。在亚空间风暴减弱，或其他仍在不知不觉地执行战帅口是心非命令的军团杀出一条通路之前，泰拉的防御者只能孤立无援地独自抵抗，而在他们的身旁，银河也在熊熊燃烧。

Uncertainty and Allegiance

不确定性与忠诚

The treachery of the Legions that prosecuted the Dropsite massacre was a stark crime against all the Great Crusade had striven so hard to achieve, and the names of these Traitor Legions spread far and wide. From the very beginning, however, the division between Loyalist and Traitor was never as clearly defined as later generations might believe. It was certainly true that the Warmaster and his co-conspirators had turned hundreds of thousands of once staunchly loyal Legionaries against the Imperium and their brothers, but his reach was never truly total. The nature of the Emperor's immense Great Crusade was such that, while each of the Legions often fought as a whole army under the direct leadership of its own Primarch, smaller contingents were detached across the entire Imperium and into the deep void beyond. The ceaseless and ever-varying demands of numerous ongoing Compliance campaigns, suppression actions against recidivist regimes and the bolstering of Rogue Trader Militant pathfinder forces caused Space Marine detachments of all sizes, from individual squads to entire battalions, to operate beyond even the reach of the Warmaster's agents whilst the poison was spreading through their parent Legions.

登陆点大屠杀中所展现出的军团叛变是一种完全的罪恶，他们背叛了帝国在大远征时期苦心奋斗所实现的一切成就。但在最开始时，叛军和忠诚派之间的分歧并不像后世可能想象的那样泾渭分明。确实，战帅和他的共犯们让数十万曾经坚定忠诚的军团战士背叛了帝国和他们的兄弟，但荷鲁斯也并未影响到所有人。帝皇发动的大远征的性质就是如此：虽然每个军团通常都是在自己原体的直接领导下作为一支完整的军队作战，但是小型的分遣队也会被派遣到整个帝国各处和外层深空中执行任务。无数正在进行中的归顺战役、对于惯犯政权的镇压行动和对于行商浪人军事寻路者部队的支援任务造成了对于阿斯塔特部队的不断变化的无止境需求，这也就造成了一种情况：在母军团遭受荷鲁斯毒害的同时，仍有规模从独立小队到整个战斗营各异的星际战士分遣队在甚至连战帅的特工们接触不到的地方行动。

In most cases, these contingents were simply too far distant to be infected with the malady of treachery. By the time they eventually returned to communication range with the Imperium at large, such as it was with astrotelepathy made all but impossible by the tortured Warp, the die was cast and events had moved on. Confronted with outright betrayal, these contingents saw the Warmaster for what he truly was and their brothers for base traitors, and could do nothing but renounce their erstwhile kin.Records do not relate how many of these recalcitrant bands were destroyed by their own upon returning from detached duty.

在大多数情况中，这些分遣队仅仅是因为过于遥远以至于并未遭受到叛乱思潮的影响。当他们最终返回到能与帝国大部分区域进行通讯的范围内时，纷乱的亚空间状况也能星语通讯变得不可能，事已至此，也只能走一步看一步。面对着荷鲁斯彻头彻尾的背叛，这些分遣队认清了这位战帅的真面目，意识到了他们的兄弟们也已然是叛徒，而他们能做的也只有与这些曾经的血亲们决裂。（至于）此类不愿同流合污的部队中有多少是在从自己的派遣任务返回时遭到了亲族们的毁灭，相关记录也无法说明。

It is likely the case that, as events unfolded and the Warmaster's betrayal took its course, some in the Traitor Legions must have reconsidered their allegiance. The Warmaster's treachery spread through the Legions at a shocking rate, but its effect on individual warriors was often subtle and varied. A Legionary might agree, for example, that the Emperor had abandoned his Legions and that Horus, and not the Council of Terra, had the right to rule in his stead. That same warrior might then see the necessity of a brief but decisive inter-Legion war in order to purge the Legiones Astartes of those lacking the strength and vision to make a stand against the forces taking control of the nascent Imperium.

而随着事态的发展与荷鲁斯的叛乱走上正轨，可能叛徒军团中的某些人也必须重新考虑他们的忠诚度。战帅的叛变在各军团中以惊人的速率传播着，但它对于战士个体的影响通常是微妙且各异的。例如，一位军团战士可能会认同：帝皇已经抛弃了他的军团们，有权取而代之进行统治的是荷鲁斯而非泰拉议会。有些战士则认为有必要进行一场简短但却具有决定性的军团间内战，以清除掉那些缺乏与控制着新生人类帝国的势力进行对抗的实力和远见的阿斯塔特军团。

As the Warmaster's true loyalties became evident, however, even those who followed his orders at Isstvan and elsewhere might have reconsidered. As those forces called upon by Erebus of the Word Bearers and others became more familiar, and the secular truths to which so many had clung to for so long were proved a lie, some warriors must surely have wavered in their position. Not all could cross the final rubicon into open alliance with the forces underpinning the entire rebellion and for many, the final realisation of the true nature of those forces must have come tragically late, long after all hope of salvation or redemption had passed.

不过，随着战帅真正的忠诚（对象）变得明显起来，哪怕是那些在伊斯特万星系和其他地区执行了他命令的人们也能也（对现状）进行了重新审视。随着他们对于艾瑞巴斯和其他怀言者们所召唤的那种力量愈加熟悉，许多人长期坚持的世俗真理被证明是谎言，某些战士一定也动摇了自己的立场。并非所有人都能够破釜沉舟地（机仆：跨过卢比孔河，很经典的说法）与那些支持整场叛乱的力量公开结盟，而对大多数人来说，他们对于这些力量真实本质的最终认识会悲剧性地迟来，但到那时，他们就已经失去所有的救赎希望很久了。

Despite the paucity of records, accounts of small warbands that were once part of the known Traitor Legions fighting independently persisted throughout the war. A handful of extant accounts, now sealed beyond all retrieval, make reference to a loosely-termed and non-formal class of warrior known as the 'Blackshields'. The majority of Blackshields appear to have been of the Legiones Astartes, though some may once have belonged to other factions. In some cases the term was a literal description, the warriors having obscured the livery of their parent Legion, painting some or all of their armour's panels black to hide all former associations. In other cases, outcast forces proudly bore their original colours and may have regarded themselves as the true inheritors of their Legions. Thus, for example, the 34th Millennial of the Emperor's Children (the 'Death Eagles') bore the purple and gold of their parent Legion with pride, refusing to abandon their heraldry. It is thought that the Death Eagles Millennial clashed with their Traitor kin at Lethe and at Revorthe Keep in the Coronid Deeps, but their ultimate fate, like that of so many others, remains unknown.

尽管我们缺乏相关记录，但在整场战争中都持续存在过此类报告：曾是某个未知叛变军团部队的小型战帮在独立作战。大量尚存的报告都提到了一类被称为“黑盾”的组织松散的非正式战士团体，现在这些报告被封存起来，任何地方都无法检索到。黑盾的主体似乎是阿斯塔特军团战士，不过某些成员可能曾经属于其他派系。某些情况中“黑盾”是一种字面意思上的描述：战士们刮抹掉了母军团的标志，将动力甲的部分或者全部甲块喷涂成黑色以隐藏他们与过去的所有联系。而在其他情况中，这些被放逐的部队会骄傲地保留着自己的最初配色，他们可能自视为军团真正的继承者。比如帝皇之子军团的第34千人队“死亡雄鹰”便自豪地喷涂着母军团的金紫配色，并拒绝抛弃自己的纹章。我们认为死亡雄鹰在王冠深渊区域中的Lethe世界和Revorthe Keep世界上与自己的叛徒胞亲们发生了冲突，而至于他们的最终命运，就像其他许多黑盾部队的一样不为人们所知。