（小说翻译）必偿之债
On the horizon stood the greatest man there had ever been, the gilded giant that was Rogal Dorn. He had led them across this bleak wasteland, fighting through the host of cultists and degenerates thrown into their guns by the traitors of the Iron Warriors. Now the Scouring was almost done with this world, the Iron Warriors were nearly driven out and the poor fools who still believed in Horus and his heresy would be swept from another planet.
罗格 多恩站在地平线处，这位身披金色盔甲的巨人是（军团中）有史以来最伟大的战士。他率领着军团战士们穿过这片荒芜的废土，与被钢铁勇士们赶到他们枪口面前的邪教徒和堕落者们展开激战。现在这个世界基本得到了肃清，此地钢铁勇士们几乎全被驱逐出去，仍对荷鲁斯与他的叛乱深信不疑的可怜蠢货们会在另一个星球上被清理干净。
Brother Scoiven trudged through the knee-deep ash. He had seen his target fall, shot through with a round from Scoiven’s Stalker-pattern boltgun. The battle was swift and ever-moving, the fighting reduced to isolated bursts of gunfire, and clear targets were rare. Scoiven had taken the shot faster than thought, and it had hit.
斯考文修士在及膝深的灰烬中艰难前行着。他已经看到了自己的目标倒下，而击中后者的正是斯考文的潜行者爆矢枪中的子弹。这是一场迅速且处于不断运动中的战斗，双方间的搏斗沦为了零星的相互射击，清晰的目标极为罕见。斯考文未经思索便果断开枪，他击中了目标。
The Iron Warrior’s gunmetal armour had not stopped the Stalker round punching through his throat. The ash was churned purple-black by the blood that had left him already.
钢铁勇士的铁灰色动力甲未能阻止潜行者爆矢弹穿透星际战士的喉咙，他的伤口涌出了鲜血，将灰烬染成了紫黑色。
‘You will pay,’ gasped the Iron Warrior, his voice metallic and strained through the faceplate of his helmet. ‘Whatever you do, wherever you go, you will pay.’
“你会为此付出代价”，钢铁勇士喘息着，他的声音从头盔面甲的后侧勉强传出，带着种金属般冷酷淡然的音调，“无论你做了什么，前往何方，你都会为此付出代价。”
Scoiven drew his combat knife as he wrenched the helmet from the traitor’s head. ‘My debt is cleared,’ he said. ‘Your payment has already been taken.’
斯考文猛地把头盔从叛徒的脑袋上拽下，同时顺手拔出了自己的格斗刀。“我的账已经结清了”，他说到，“拿着你的报酬吧。”
Scoiven plunged the blade under the Iron Warrior’s jaw and felt the heat of his enemy’s lifeblood as it flowed.
斯考文将利刃从钢铁勇士的下颌处向上捅入，第四军团战士的鲜血喷出，顺着刀流淌下来，斯考文感受到了敌人生命之血的热量。
The sky above was bottle-green, the swirls of nebulae visible through the dense clouds. This world was poisoned. Its atmosphere, its water and the aliens who lived there were poisoned. The blade that had caught Scoiven in the gut as he killed the last of them had forced a venom into his veins that even a Space Marine’s constitution could not hold off.
他们的头顶上方是一片深绿色的天空，透过浓密的云层，可以看到星云的漩涡。这是个有毒的世界，它的大气里、水体中和栖身于此的异形物种体内都含有毒素。在斯考文杀死最后一个异星人的同时，对方也将利刃刺入了他的内脏，毒液注入了他的血管中，而且那是一种连星际战士的体质也无法抵抗的剧毒。
‘In the primarch’s time,’ growled Scoiven, ‘the xenos fell to us like wheat before the scythe. No battle-brother would ever have suffered such a damned insignificant death.’
“在原体的时代，”斯考文低吼着，“异形们会像被镰刀收割的麦子那样倒在我们面前。没有哪位战斗修士要经受这种天杀的轻贱死法！”
‘Dorn is long gone, brother,’ said the Apothecary as he hooked another cylinder of humours up to the needle in Scoiven’s vein. It was true. The primarch had been lost on the Sword of Sacrilege, that cursed ship, and only his bones remained in the hands of the Chapter.
“多恩很久之前就走了，兄弟，”药剂师一边说着，一边在输液架上换好了另一个桶状药瓶，瓶中的药物通过针头输入到斯考文的血管内。此言非虚，原体已经失踪在了那艘被诅咒的飞船——亵渎之剑号上，只有他的骨头仍然保留在帝国之拳战团中。
Scoiven held another bone, that of the Iron Warrior he had killed on the wasteland world while Dorn still lived, lifetimes of men ago. It felt warm in his hand and strangely heavy – a shoulder blade cut from the enemy’s body after the battle, worn on a leather strip around Scoiven’s neck through the centuries that followed. It was a reminder of who he was and who the enemy were. It was in his hand now and he felt his grip weakening.
斯考文保留着另一块骨头，这块骨骸来自他在废土世界上杀死了那名钢铁勇士，彼时多恩还活着，那是很久之前的事情了。握在手中时，斯考文觉得这块骨头温暖而且怪异地沉重——战斗结束后，斯考文从敌人的尸体中剔出了一块肩胛骨，在之后的几个世纪中，斯考文都用皮绳栓好这块骨头，挂在自己的脖子上。这件战利品提醒着斯考文：自己是谁，以及他的敌人又是谁。这块骨头现在就握在斯考文手中，但他感觉自己越来越难以握紧它了。
‘You are not long for this life,’ said the other battle-brother attending to Scoiven, a Techmarine in rust-red armour. ‘Decisions must be made. You have fought for over three hundred years and you are the eldest of all the Imperial Fists. There are few now that breathed while Dorn did. Such a loss is beyond counting.’
“你命不久矣，”另一位照料斯考文的战斗修士说到，他是一位身披锈红色动力甲的技术军士。“必须做出决定了。你已经奋战了三百年，是所有帝国之拳中资历最老的。现在已经几乎没有与多恩同时代生活过的星际战士，你的逝去会是我们不可估量的损失。”
Scoiven turned to the Techmarine, Forge-Brother Malkanos, but even that movement hurt. ‘What are you saying?’
斯科文转头看向了这位技术军士——锻造修士马尔卡诺斯，但即使是这样的动作也让他感到痛苦。“你在说什么?”
The Techmarine and the Apothecary exchanged glances. ‘Ancient Kulgatha was lost to the accursed eldar at Venomspire Ridge,’ said Malkanos. ‘His sarcophagus yet lies empty. It is ill fortune to leave a Dreadnought idle for long, especially when a battle-brother worthy of its use lies mortally wounded. But we cannot inter you without your leave, Brother Scoiven. We know you as a man of pride, a warrior who would wish to pass on to the End Time and fight alongside Dorn as a whole man instead of living on crippled within a Dreadnought. But if you choose interment and life as an Ancient, our Chapter will not lose your battle-wisdom for many centuries more.’
技术军士和药剂师交换了眼神。“古战士库尔卡萨在Venomspire山脉的战斗中陨落于那些受诅咒的艾尔达人之手”，马尔卡诺斯说，“他的石棺仍然空着。让无畏机甲长期处于闲置状态是不幸的，尤其是有一名配得上使用这种圣物的战斗修士受了致命伤时。但没有您的允许，我们就不能将您葬入无畏机甲，斯考文兄弟。我们知道您是个高傲的人，是一位渴望走过自己的最终时刻的战士，您希望作为一个完整的人类与多恩并肩奋战，而非被困在无畏机甲中苟延残喘。但如果您选择被葬入无畏机甲，作为一名古战士活下去，我们的战团就不会失去您那超过数个世纪战斗智慧。”
Scoiven clenched the Iron Warrior’s bone in his fist, and it took the last of his strength from him. There were a million of them out there, a billion, an untold horde of enemies that begged for death.
斯考文紧紧攥住钢铁勇士的骨骸，这耗尽了他最后的力气。外面的世界中还有数百万甚至数十亿的帝国之敌，不计其数的敌人在乞求死亡。
‘Do it,’ he said.
“动手吧。”他说到。
The steel of his body was cold and clad in ice. Scoiven’s right arm was a massive hammer, a siege weapon that could bring down a fortress. His left was a battery of rocket launchers. When he walked, the forges of Phalanx shook.
他的金属身躯是冰冷的，也包裹在冰霜中。他的右臂是一柄巨大的攻城锤，这件攻城武器能拆毁一座要塞;左臂是一组火箭弹发射器。当他走动时，山阵号的铸造厂都在颤抖。
The chill clung to him, as if he had not quite outrun death. But the strength, the power, the sheer destructive force to be unleashed on the enemies of mankind – that was compensation. This was not an unbearable tomb, the living death that some said was the fate of those interred in a Dreadnought. Yes, he was crippled in body and would never leave the machine’s embrace, but Brother Scoiven was still a weapon in the hand of Rogal Dorn, and by the Emperor that was worth any sacrifice.
一阵寒意笼罩着他，仿佛他还没有完全摆脱死亡。但他也得到了补偿：可以释放在人类之敌头上的力量、动力和纯粹的破坏力。无畏机甲并非令人难以忍受的坟冢，某些人将葬入其中之人的命运称为“活生生的死亡”。不错，他的身体已经残缺不全了，也永远无法再离开这具机器的怀抱，但斯考文修士依旧是罗格 多恩手中的一件武器，他仍然愿意为了帝皇而做出任何牺牲。
The chill grew deeper. Scoiven checked the runes of the Dreadnought’s power readout, projected onto his retina, but the power plant and life support were running normally. Icy fingers ran up what remained of his body, across the skin of his torso, now sallow and puckered inside the steel sarcophagus, and around the inputs where cables pierced his chest and skull.
寒意变得更为浓重。斯考文检查了的动力读数符文，这些信息被投射到了他的视网膜上，但动力装置和生命维持系统运行正常。冰冷的手指顺着他剩余的躯体移动，穿过他躯干的皮肤——这具蜡黄且皱缩躯体现在困于石棺内，侵入到了电缆插入他胸腔和颅骨的区域。
A face appeared, not a projection but there, inside, with him. It was a skull, wrought from pitted and bloodstained iron, locked into a permanent grin. It was the skull that might have sat beneath a face Scoiven remembered from a lifetime ago, one lying in the bloody ash waiting for the death blow.
一张脸出现了，但它不是投影，而是就在此地，就在斯考文的内心中。那是一个骷髅头，由带着坑洞且血迹斑斑的铁块锻造而成，嵌着一个永久的狞笑。这个骷髅头上面曾经覆盖着一张脸，一张斯考文还活着的时候救记住的脸——那时候，这张脸的主人正躺在血腥的灰烬中，等待着致命一击。
“You could not resist taking a trophy of me”, it said. “I lay within that shard of bone for three hundred years. I was patient. And now I have something new to haunt.”
“你抗拒不了从我身上夺取纪念品的诱惑”，骷髅说到，“我躺在这片骨头中长达三百年之久。我是有耐心的人。现在，我有可供纠缠的新对象了。”
Scoiven tried to cry out, to scream, but his vocal cords had been removed. He could not move as the cold crept over him and immersed him.
斯考文努力吼出声，努力想尖叫出来，但他的声带已经被移除了。寒意向他袭来，把他淹没了，他却无法动弹。
‘I told you that you would pay,’ said the Iron Warrior.
“我说过，你会为此付出代价。”钢铁勇士说到。
