HH4节译：弑君之狼——黑暗年代中的叛变军团及其盟友

As the time of galactic bloodshed and tumult that would come to be known as the Age of Darkness came to pass, the myriad forces of Warmaster Horus were set moving by him as the playing pieces of a game, each with their own tasks and objectives, each with their own part to play in a much larger, labyrinthine plan of conquest. Who they were and the powers they possessed were as much a product of history —of the Great Crusade and the countless wars to unify Mankind and purge the horrors of the alien from existence— as they were of the acts of treachery that brought them to the Traitors’ cause. The forces of the Traitor Legions and their allies then were a vast, shifting power; a beast with many heads, which beset the body of the Imperium and the throats of its defenders, each part having its own nature and its own motivations, as well as its own role to play in the terrible slaughter that was to come.

随着被后世称为“黑暗年代”的银河系血腥混乱时期到来，战帅荷鲁斯开始如同玩弄游戏棋子一般移动着手中的无数部队。每支部队都有自己的任务和目标，也都在某场更大更复杂的征服行动中有着自己的一部分任务。这些部队和他们所拥有的力量同样也是历史的产物——大远征和旨在统一人类与清除异星人物种带来的恐惧的无数战争催生出了他们，而他们背信弃义的行径使他们加入了叛徒的行列。叛徒军团及其盟友们的部队庞大且处于不断的变化中；他们就像有众多头颅的野兽，包围住了帝国，扼住了帝国防御者们的喉咙；但每一部分势力都有自己的本质和自己的动机，也都在之后到来的屠杀中扮演着他们自己的角色。

The Dawning of the War

战争初始

The opening acts of the great civil war which would become known as the Horus Heresy were played out upon the blood-soaked surface of Isstvan III, where the Warmaster purged his Legion, as well as those of his brother Primarchs Mortarion, Angron and Fulgrim, of those who would refuse to follow him into rebellion against the Emperor. The deed was executed with brutal efficiency and tens of thousands were purged in the first,and some would say darkest act of the entire rebellion. As extensive as it was however, the betrayal failed to entirely scour the four Traitor Legions. Among those few who escaped, a handful of loyal Legiones Astartes had captured the frigate the Eisenstin, and with it carried word of the Warmaster's heinous treachery to Terra.

这场被后世称为荷鲁斯叛乱的惨烈内战以伊斯特万三号地表上血流漂橹的恶战作为开局，战帅和他的三位原体兄弟——莫塔里安、安格隆与福格瑞姆清洗掉了自己军团中那些拒绝追随他们背叛帝皇的忠诚战士。他们以残酷的效率进行了这项工作，数万名忠诚派在一开始便被清洗掉，而某些人将会看到整场叛乱中最黑暗的行径。虽然这次背叛规模浩大，但四个叛变军团中的忠诚派并未被完全清理干净。在极少数逃出生天的人中，一小群忠诚的阿斯塔特军团战士俘获了护卫舰“爱森斯坦”号，他们将战帅发动这次令人发指的叛乱的消息带往了泰拉。

With the element of surprise lost, the Warmaster's plans for a swift strike against Terra shifted, for Horus had long prepared for the dethroning of his father and had numerous contingencies in place. A surprise assault on the Throne world was no longer possible, but Horus yet retained the initiative. The Imperium was reeling and uncertain of who was ally and who betrayer. The Warmaster had yet to reveal the full extent of his hold upon the Space Marine Legions, and had set in motion a plan to sunder the Emperor's realm still further. Upon the black, blood-soaked sands of Isstvan V, Horus all but destroyed three entire Loyalist Legions, a feat of arms no enemy of Mankind had ever achieved throughout the entire bloody epoch of the Unification Wars and the Great Crusade. It was achieved not just by military strength, but by guile, for three of the six Legions ordered by Terra to Isstvan V to confront the Traitors had been secretly turned to Horus' cause. When the Word Bearers, Iron Warriors and Alpha Legion revealed their true allegiance, the Raven Guard, Salamanders and Iron Hands were all but destroyed in the most brutal, bitter and destructive three hours ever endured by any of the Legiones Astanes. At a stroke, the Imperium was on its knees and although Horus could no longer march directly upon Terra, the pendulum of war had swung inexorably in his favour.

由于失去了发动出人意料袭击的条件，战帅也改变了向泰拉发动快速进攻的计划，因为荷鲁斯为迫使自己的父亲退位而做了长期准备，他也安排好了诸多突发事件。对王座世界发动突袭已不再可能，但荷鲁斯仍然保有主动权。帝国正在陷入慌乱动荡，确定不了盟友和叛徒。战帅还没有显露他对于星际战士军团的全部控制范围，他发动了进一步分裂帝皇疆土的计划。在伊斯特万五号被鲜血浸透的黑色沙地上，荷鲁斯将三个完整的忠诚军团尽数摧毁——在统一战争和大远征的血腥纪元中，人类的所有敌人都未曾取得过如此的军事壮举。但荷鲁斯实现这一成果靠的不是军事力量，而是阴谋诡计：在被泰拉命令前往伊斯特万五号征讨叛军的六个军团中，有三个已经暗中投奔到了荷鲁斯麾下。当怀言者、钢铁勇士和阿尔法军团表明自己真正的忠诚对象后，在所有阿斯塔特军团战士所经历过的最残酷、最痛苦也最具破坏性的三个小时里，暗鸦守卫、钢铁之手和火蜥蜴三个军团惨遭毁灭。帝国在一时之间便重伤跪地，尽管荷鲁斯不能再直接向泰拉进军，但战争的钟摆还是无情地向他倾斜。

Horus' next act was to ensure that he retained his hard-won advantage, and to this end he convened a council of arch-Traitors, which gathered even as the spilled blood of three entire Legions dried upon the blasted ground of the Urgall Depression. During this council, Horus tasked each of the Traitor Primarchs, as well as numerous other servants and allies, with a task to perform in the next phase of the coming war. Only a mind as powerful as that of a Primarch could have fully comprehended this, for it conceived and orchestrated not just the missions of the Traitor Legiones Astartes, but of multitudes of other servants, from traitorous Imperial Army Regiments of the Line to individual demagogues across thousands of systems the length and breadth of the Imperium.

荷鲁斯的下一步行动是要巩固自己来之不易的优势，为了达到这一目的，他召集起来一个由叛军首脑们参加的会议，并在三个军团洒于Urgall洼地被炸毁地面上的鲜血干涸之时召开。在这次会议中，荷鲁斯向每一位叛徒原体以及为数众多的仆从和盟友们都指派了任务，确定了他们要在即将到来的战争的下一阶段要执行事项。只有如同原体那般人物的强大思维才能完全理解这一点，因为它不仅策划策划了叛军阿斯塔特军团的任务，还指定了其他仆从军的任务——从叛变的帝国军前线部队到遍布于帝国数千个星系中的个体煽动者们，全都应有尽有。

Visions of Conquest

征服愿景

Foremost in the ranks of infamy were the Sons of the Horus. The Warmaster's own Legion would form the leading edge in the conquest of great swathes of the northern Imperium. They would subjugate entire sectors to his cause, turning industries to serve the Traitors' war effort and pressing entire populations into the Warmaster's armies in the infamous process which has since become known as the Dark Compliance. This conquest would ultimately be directed towards Terra, and instead of the originally conceived rapid strike from an unexpected quarter, would form an indomitable advance that would both feed the Traitors' strength and slowly tip the balance of power against the Imperium as more sectors declared for or were forced into the Traitors' camp. This would only however be a small part of Horus' master plan, or indeed his own Legion's part in it.

荷鲁斯之子是战帅麾下最为重要的步兵力量。在征服帝国北部广阔带状区域的战争中，战帅本人的军团将组成冲锋在前的锋刃。他们征服整个星区并进行臭名昭著的“黑暗归顺”行动，令工业设施服务于叛军的战争，迫使全部的人口加入战帅的军队。这些征服行动最终是指向泰拉。荷鲁斯之子们并未按最初设想那样从意想不到的地方迅速出击，而是进行了一场不屈不挠的挺进；随着更多的星区宣誓效忠或被迫加入战帅的阵营，叛军的力量将会得到滋养，也会让实力的天平向着战帅一侧倾斜。然而，这只是荷鲁斯庞大计划中的一小部分，或者说只是他自己的军团在其中参与的部分。

The Death Guard of the Warmaster's brother Primarch Mortarion would reinforce this effort, the 'Reaper of Worlds' casting a deathly shadow across system after system. In particular, those worlds that refused to bend knee to the Warmaster would know the coming of Mortarion, and in his wake he would leave a trail of dead worlds, their surfaces scoured by radiation, skies poisoned and the bones of entire populations left to bleach in the light of uncaring suns. In such, Horus kept the Death Guard a key component of his plans, believing them both wholly joined with him in his cause, and utterly reliable and determined as a key part in the great war he had unleashed.

死亡守卫——战帅的原体兄弟莫塔里安的军团也强化了这种攻势，“世界收割者”在一个又一个星系中投下了致命的阴影。那些拒绝屈服于战帅的世界将会尤为知晓莫塔里安的到来（意味着什么），死亡之主会在自己留下一连串死亡世界，这些世界的地表会被辐射侵蚀，天空会充满毒素，冷漠的太阳会曝晒着其上全部人口的骸骨，令其发白褪色。因此，荷鲁斯一直把死亡守卫作为其计划中的关键组成部分；他相信第十四军团会完全支持他的事业，并在他所发动的战争中成为完全可靠且坚定的关键部分。

Conversely, knowing that the Emperor's Children were embarked upon a path of excess and abandon which was transforming the Legion into something unpredictably dangerous and perhaps now no longer trusted, the Warmaster let slip the IIIrd Legion to their own devices and their own increasingly mysterious ends——within certain bounds, knowing that they would wreak havoc as they went. In this they still served the greater cause, as on such worlds they attacked, horrors would be perpetrated that would serve as a warning to others.

相反地，由于得知帝皇之子们踏上了一条放纵的道路（这条道路正在令该军团变得带有不可预测的危险性，而且现在或许已经让他们变得不可信赖），战帅纵容第三军团去追求他们自己的技艺和那愈发神秘的目标——但要处于一定的范围之内。荷鲁斯知道，帝皇之子们将在行动的同时造成祸患灾害。但第三军团仍能通过这种方式服务于更伟大的事业，他们会在自己进攻的那些世界上做出恐怖的行径，而这些暴行能用于警告其他世界。

As for the other Traitor Legions, the Warmaster began to immediately put them to purposes and campaigns meant both to destabilise the Imperium and to draw off and degrade the vast numbers of Loyalist forces and defences arrayed against them, all with the ultimate goal of paving the way to a decisive and apocalyptic assault on Terra.

至于其他叛军军团，战帅也开始立即将他们投入（各种）目标和战役，目的既是要破坏帝国的稳定，也要击退和削弱大量被布置起来对抗他们的忠诚派派军队和防线。这一切的最终目的就是要铺平一条对泰拉发动决定性且毁灭性进攻的道路。

As part of this, the Warmaster tasked his brother Primarch Perturabo with casting these down. In particular, the many key systems of the outer Segmentum Solar, which were defended by small Imperial Fists Castellan forces, were to be the Iron Warriors' to destroy. Each such holding was a heavily fortified bastion from which the VIIth Legion could potentially rally Loyalist units of the Imperialis Auxilia to sally forth and threaten Traitor lines of attack, and so could not be suffered to exist. Perturabo and his Iron Warriors Legion were known for their bitter resentment of the Imperial Fists, and the Warmaster was well aware that his brother Primarch would relish the opportunity to strike at the works of his rival, the Primarch Rogal Dorn. As with his orders to the IIIrd Legion, Horus was adamant that the Iron Warriors should conclude such destruction as swiftly as possible, for in the assault on Terra, their specialist skills would be most needed. Indeed, it is likely that without the Iron Warriors and the genius of their bitter Primarch, the already planned-for attack on Terra might be all but untenable.

作为该计划的一部分，战帅将此类任务交给自己的原体兄弟佩图拉博去执行。太阳星域外侧的很多关键星系尤其要交给钢铁勇士们去摧毁——这些世界由小规模的帝国之拳护堡部队进行防守。此类据点都是大幅强化过的堡垒，以此为基础上，第七军团有可能集结忠诚派帝国辅助军部队出征并威胁到叛军的进攻战线，因此荷鲁斯不能容忍它们的存在。佩图拉博和钢铁勇士们因其对于帝国之拳的苦涩仇恨而著称，战帅也很清楚自己的兄弟佩图拉博不会放过进攻其死对头——原体罗格 多恩所筑工事的机会。就像他对第三军团下达的命令那样，荷鲁斯坚定地认为钢铁战士应该尽快完成此类毁灭任务，因为在对于泰拉的进攻中，钢铁勇士的特长技能是他最为需要的。事实上，如果没有钢铁勇士及其苦涩原体的天才技艺，荷鲁斯已经计划好的对泰拉攻击行动可能是几乎站不住脚的。

Other Traitor Legions the Warmaster dispatched further afield. In particular, the Word Bearers of the Primarch Lorgar and the World Eaters ofhis brother Angron were tasked with engaging the Ultramarines of the Primarch Roboute Guilliman and ensuring the XIIIth Legion, still powerful even after the treacherous attack of the Word Bearers against them at Calth, could not intervene decisively in the war. This so-called Shadow Crusade would serve another, still more sinister purpose in addition to its military objectives. In laying waste to hundreds of worlds and dedicating the deaths of millions to those powers to which he was pledged, the Primarch Lorgar would precipitate such turmoil in the Immaterium that the galaxy would be split all but in two by an impenetrable warp storm. In this Lorgar was successful, bringing into being the Ruinstorm and making movement and asrropathic communication between the two sundered regions all but impossible.

其他叛军军团被战帅派往了更为遥远的战场上。尤其是怀言者原体珞珈和吞世者原体安格隆，他们负责去拖住极限战士原体罗伯特 基里曼，并且要确保第十三军团无法果断地介入战争——即便是在考斯遭到怀言者的背刺之后，极限战士军团也仍旧强悍。除了军事目标外，这场所谓的“暗影远征”也将会服务于另一个更为险恶的目标。通过摧毁数百个世界并向他所供奉的权能献上数百万人的死亡，原体珞珈将会在非物质宇宙中造成极强的混乱，以至于银河都几乎被一场不可穿越的亚空间风暴一分为二。而珞珈也成功实现了这个目标，他促成了亚空间风暴，令两片被分裂区域之间的移动和通讯变得几乎不可能。

The Night Lords too were dispatched on a mission far from Terra to the galaxy's Eastern Fringe, leading some to suspect that Horus was still uncertain of the motives and even allegiance of his brother Primarch and lord of the VIIIth Legiones Astartes, Konrad Curze. The mission of the Night Lords was twofold; it first was to destroy and harrow extensive strategic resources in the region in which Horus held little sway, denying them to the Imperium as a potential source of reinforcement or attack against the Traitors' flanks once the push towards Terra was launched. These elements were grouped principally around the Thramas Sector, and key among them were three stubbornly independent and now Loyalist Forge Worlds: Triplex Galatia, Triplex Thule and Triplex Phall, which between them accounted for almost all of the Loyalists' large warshipbuilding capacity in the Ultima Segmentum (and had indeed supplied both Ultramar and Nocturne with much of their Legions' fleets). Secondly, the proximity of Thramas to where the Dark Angels Legion had been dispatched before the war's outbreak would also serve the purpose of drawing them into battle; forced to defend its vital worlds. The Dark Angels Legion and their master remained something of a supremely dangerous unknown quantity, and not one that Horus could afford to neglect unchallenged. So it was that the Warmaster's orders to the Night Haunter were unequivocal; Thramas must be silenced and the Dark Angels drawn into a war that would preclude their intervention in the assault on Terra at any cost.

午夜领主军团也被指派到了远离泰拉的银河东部边境，这导致某些人假设荷鲁斯仍旧不确定他的原体兄弟——第八军团之主康拉德 科兹的意图甚至是忠诚对象。午夜领主军团的任务有两重意义：首先是要在荷鲁斯几乎未控制住的区域中摧毁和掠夺大量战略资源，令这些地区无法为帝国提供潜在的增援，也无法在叛军向泰拉挺进时袭击其侧翼。该区域（的战略资源）主要集中在萨拉马斯星区周围，其中的关键是三个曾经顽固独立但现在忠于帝国的铸造世界：三重格拉提亚、三重苏勒和三重法尔，人们认为这三个铸造世界几乎占据了极限星域中几乎所有忠诚派大型战舰的建造能力（事实上，这三个铸造世界为奥特拉玛和夜曲星提供了军团舰队中的很多战舰）。其次，黑暗天使军团在战争爆发之前便被派往了萨拉马斯附近，荷鲁斯也能以此将他们拖入战争；黑暗天使军团要被迫去保护那些重要世界。黑暗天使军团及其主宰者仍是一个极其危险的未知数，荷鲁斯无法承受对其置之不理的代价。所以战帅下达给午夜幽魂的命令是毫不含糊的：萨拉马斯星区必须陷入沉寂，午夜领主军团要不惜一切代价将黑暗天使军团卷入战争，以此来阻止他们干预叛军对泰拉的进攻。

The Alpha Legion was tasked with a mission for which they were well disposed - the harrowing of desperate enemy forces and worlds across the southern and western Imperium. As a key part of this, the destruction by any means the Primarch Alpharius deemed appropriate of the Loyalist Legions in the area. They were to sow chaos behind the Loyalists' lines, but also to strike in force at targets of opportunity where they could; again keeping the Imperium from massing its defence-in-depth against the Traitors. As a part of this, hundreds of Traitor Auxilia regiments (which Horus considered entirely expendable to the cause), as well as numerous detachments of the Traitor Legio Titanicus and Traitor-aligned Taghmata were nominally released to their command. The Space Wolves Legion, having suffered greatly in their ravaging of Prospero and neardestruction of the Thousand Sons Legion, were one of the Alpha Legion's principal targets, situated as they were in the Alaxxes Nebula recovering and rearming. Also in the vicinity were the White Scars Legion of the Primarch Jaghatai Khan, which had not yet been touched by the war, and were known to have recently concluded their long campaign against the Orks of the Chondax System and therefore within the Alpha Legion's baleful sphere. Both were to suffer at the hands of the serpents of Alpharius.

阿尔法军团则承当了一项他们非常乐于去执行的任务：在帝国西部和南部各地折磨劫掠那些绝望的敌军部队和世界。作为该计划的关键部分，原体阿尔法瑞斯认为应该采取一切合适的手段来摧毁该地区的忠诚派军团。他们将会在忠诚派战线的后方埋下混乱的种子，但只要有机会，他们也将会对目标展开大举进攻；阿尔法军团再次阻止了帝国依靠在纵深处集结部队来对抗叛军（的计划）。作为该计划的一部分，数百个叛变的辅助军千人团（荷鲁斯完全视之为消耗品）、叛变泰坦军团派出的众多特遣队和与叛军结盟的机神禁卫军都在名义上被交由阿尔法军团指挥。阿尔法军团的首要目标之一是太空野狼军团——第六军团在蹂躏普罗斯佩罗并几乎摧毁千子军团的行动中也受损严重，他们前往阿莱克西斯星云进行恢复和重新武装。原体察合台可汗的白疤军团也身处附近地区，他们还尚未被这场战争所触及；已知白疤军团最近刚结束了对于Chondax星系中兽人势力的漫长战役，因此也进入了阿尔法军团恶毒的进攻范围内。两个军团都将会惨遭阿尔法瑞斯麾下长蛇们的毒手。

Unholy Alliances

不义之盟

The Traitor Legions were the single greatest power and strength of Horus' armies, but they were far from alone. To achieve the ultimate aim of laying siege to Terra and casting down the Emperor, the Traitors would have to call upon and fight alongside a wide array of other forces, some simply obeying the will of masters of long association, while others were brought into the Warmaster's fold through bribery, pacts of alliance, coercion or the infamous progress of the Dark Compliance. As early as the Traitors' defence of the Urgall Depression during the Isstvan V Dropsite Massacre, Auxilia troops were used with unspeakable callousness by their Space Marine masters, herded towards the enemy as bullet-soaks on which the foe's ammunition would be expended before battle was truly joined, and such disregard for the purely human component of the Warmaster's forces would be shown time and again throughout the bloody years that were to follow. This was not however universal, as at other times, Horus and his principal subordinates entrusted vital missions to the more reliable of his mortal allies, and split entire battlegroups of Traitor Auxilia and Armada units on independent operations either of conquest or destruction, although it was not uncommon for him to assign an officer or cadre of the Sons of Horus, Iron Warriors or Alpha Legion to oversee such forces in the field.

叛军军团是荷鲁斯军队中最强大的力量，但远非是战帅唯一的力量。为了实现自己围攻泰拉并推翻帝皇（统治）的最终目标，叛军们将不得不召集种类繁多的其他部队并与之并肩作战——其中的某些在遵守其长期侍奉的主人的意志，而其他的则是因为贿赂、同盟协定、胁迫或恶名昭著的“黑暗归顺”而加入战帅的事业。早在伊斯特万五号登陆点大屠杀事件中，叛军便利用辅助军部队来防守Urgall盆地：这些凡人部队被其星际战士主子们用难以描述的冷酷无情使用着，他们成群结队地冲向敌人的枪林弹雨，以在真正开战前便耗尽敌人的弹药；而在之后的血腥岁月中，叛军们将会一再地表现出对于战帅麾下这些纯粹凡人部队的漠视。虽然这种情况并不普遍，但在其他（某些）时候，荷鲁斯与其主要下属们也会将重要的任务委托给更可靠的凡人盟友，并且拆分出完整的叛变辅助军战斗群和海军单位去独自执行征服或毁灭任务；不过，战帅通常也会派出一名军官，或者派出一群荷鲁斯之子、钢铁勇士或阿尔法星际战士去监督此类部队的战场行动。

The Traitor Auxilia

叛变辅助军

By far the largest numbers of human troops under the Warmaster's command were drawn from the Imperialis Auxilia, and ranged from the massive Imperial Army Regiments of the Line to the elite ranks of the Solar Auxilia. In addition to these experienced and well equipped forces, the Warmaster also exercised command over native militias, planetary tithe-hosts and Rogue Trader Conquestor companies.

到目前为止，战帅麾下人数最多的凡人部队是抽调自帝国辅助军，从庞大的帝国军线列团到精锐的太阳军部队都包含在内。除了这些经验老道且装备精良的部队，战帅也指挥着地方民兵、各行星上缴的什一税步兵和行商浪人的征服者部队。

The latter were able to range far and wide, often serving as emissaries of the Warmaster and delivering in person demands for planetary governors to swear loyalty to his cause, or suffer the ruin of their worlds. Some accounts even suggest Traitor Rogue Trader Conquestor forces continued their exploration of the outer darkness even as the Heresy consumed the Imperium, claiming untold worlds not in the name of the Emperor, but of the Warmaster. Some even established pocket empires far beyond the Imperium, crowning themselves as the Warmaster's suzerains over realms that lingered beyond the Heresy and well into the age of the Great Scouring.

其中，行商浪人部队能够前往遥远且广阔的区域，他们通常会充当战帅的特使，亲自行星总督们宣誓效忠于战帅的事业，否则他们的世界就要遭受毁灭。某些报告甚至表明：哪怕在叛乱吞噬人类帝国的同时，叛变的行商浪人征服者部队也仍在探索外侧的黑暗空间，他们以战帅而非帝皇的名义占领了数不尽的世界。某些行商浪人甚至在人类帝国之外的区域建立了口袋帝国，他们自己加冕为王，尊奉战帅为其宗主，这些王国挺过了大叛乱时期，一直存续到了大肃清时代。

The Traitor Fleets

叛军舰队

In addition to these ground forces, the Warmaster's mighty host was bolstered still further by entire fleets of warships turned to his service, whether willingly or otherwise. The need for such a vast armada only became more apparent after the events of Isstvan when the shortest route to attack Terra was no longer available, and the wars of the so-called Age of Darkness had begun. Without an aggressive expansion in the number of warp-capable craft in the Traitors' hands, Horus' war would simply not have been possible, for while the Legiones Astartes controlled their own ships, and thousands more besides as part of the great Expeditionary fleets, in scale alone they were insufficient to move and supply the vast hosts of all kinds that Horus had now gathered under his banner and to fight the battles flaring up across a war zone that was the galaxy entire.

除了地面部队，战舰组成的完整舰队也令战帅强大的军队如虎添翼——这些舰船自愿或被迫服务于战帅。而在伊斯特万事件之后，当进攻泰拉的最短路线无法再使用，所谓“黑暗年代”的战争也开始时，对于如此一支庞大海军舰队的需求只会变得更加明显。如果叛军不能大量增加自己手中具备亚空间穿越能力舰船的数量，荷鲁斯的战争就会变得不可能，因为尽管阿斯塔特军团控制着自己的飞船，可是单就规模而言，它们并不足以为已经聚集在战帅旗帜下的各种庞大军队提供运输和补给，也不足以在战火纷飞的整个银河系各处作战。

To ensure the continued service of these vessels and their crews when separated from his Legions' direct control, the Warmaster emplaced numerous hidden agents, cults, spies and assassins. Many a Traitor shipmaster who attempted to renege on his oaths to Horus whilst thinking himself beyond the Warmaster's gaze, found himself cut down by a deck officer who was in fact a sworn agent of Horus, while those who displayed ruthless ambition in the Warmaster's service or who embraced the strange and sinister teachings promulgated by the dark forces that walked in Horus' shadow were rewarded.

为了确保这些战舰和船员们在脱离开军团的直接控制后仍旧效忠自己，战帅安置了诸多隐藏的特工、教派、间谍和刺客。许多自认为离开了荷鲁斯注视范围的叛军船长都试图背叛自己对战帅发下的誓言，结果发现自己被某名舰上军官所杀——后者实际是宣誓效忠荷鲁斯的特工；而那些表现出服务于战帅的无情野心，或拥抱了那些行走于荷鲁斯身影中的黑暗力量所宣扬的诡异邪恶教义之人，则会得到奖赏。

The Dark Mechanicum

黑暗机械神教

Aside from the human component in the Traitors ranks, the powers of the Mechanicum and their kin were also of great importance to the war. Within the ranks of this 'Dark Mechanicum', as they became known, could be found powerful elements of the Martian Priesthood, the Ordo Reductor and the Legio Cybernetica, along with many of the feared Myrmidon Destructor Cults and a number of sub-cults which had operated for long years on the edge of tech-heresy, all drawn together by Fabricator- General Kelbor Hal. With them had come the support of more than half of the legions of the Titanicus as well as dozens of allied Knight Houses, and now Mars itself was lost to the Loyalists, while the output and military power of Forge Worlds such as Sarum, Voss, Cyclothrathe and Stygies had declared for the Traitors, with others such as Anvilus, Incaladion and Ryza paralysed by civil war.

除了叛军部队中的凡人成员，机械神教与其亲族的力量也对这场战争有着极大的重要性。在这个被称为“黑暗机械神教”的群体中，人们会发现来自火星神甫、源还修会和智控军团的颇具影响力的人物，以及附属毁灭者教派和很多长年游走在技术异端边缘的次级教派的诸多成员，他们全都是被铸造将军凯尔博 哈尔聚拢起来的。随之而来的还有半数以上泰坦军团和数十个盟友骑士家族的支持，而且现在忠诚派也已经失去了火星，同时诸如Sarum, 沃斯, Cyclothrathe和黄泉等铸造世界也宣布将自己的产出和军力贡献给叛军，而诸如Anvilus, Incaladion和瑞扎等其他铸造世界则因内战而陷入瘫痪。

Hidden Forces

隐藏的力量

As the fires of the Heresy consumed ever greater swathes of the Imperium, other, less conventional forces fought alongside the Traitors. Aside from legions of long- implanted spies, agents, terrorist cells and mercenaries, many were cultic in origin. These were drawn from the vast numbers of fanatics steeped in the insanity of the Immaterium that were rising up on world after world where the disciples of the Dark Apostle Erebus and the Davinites that had followed in the Warmaster's wake —among others— had seeded unspeakable blasphemy before the war. Most were frenzied zealots who threw themselves upon their erstwhile lords screaming the praises of entities then unnamed, but which became all too familiar as the Heresy ground on. Few worlds were untouched by the presence of these deluded cults, but it is notable that many of the Traitor Legiones Astartes avoided direct contact with them. The Word Bearers in particular factored the cult forces into their battle plans, and it is notable that many appeared to venerate the warriors of Lorgar as demi-gods or angels, prostrating themselves upon the ground in their presence or laying down their own lives in battle without question.

随着叛乱的战火吞噬了帝国越来越多的疆域，与叛军并肩作战的也出现了其他不太常见的势力。除了大量长期安插的间谍、特工、恐怖组织和雇佣兵，还有很多邪教徒。早在战争爆发之前，黑暗使徒艾瑞巴斯和达文结社的门徒们便追随在战帅身后，混入一个又一个世界的人群中，播种下不可言说的亵渎之种，沉迷于非物质宇宙疯狂（信条）的狂热教团最终在这些世界上崛起，而叛军们会从中挑选可用之人。这些人中的大多数都是狂热分子，他们扑向自己昔日领主（的军队），口中大声称颂着一些当时还未得名的实体——但随着大叛乱的发展，我们也对这些名称再熟悉不过了。未被这些受蛊惑邪教影响过的世界几乎不存在，但值得注意的是，许多阿斯塔特叛军军团的战士都避免直接接触这些邪教徒。不过怀言者军团尤其会将邪教部队纳入了自己的作战计划，而且很明显的是，很多邪教徒似乎是将珞珈的战士们作为半神或天使来崇拜，他们会匍匐在怀言者军团战士面前，或在战斗中毫无质疑地牺牲自己的生命。

There was one further ally the Warmaster could call upon, one most often encountered where the warp cults had previously risen up or where the greatest amounts of blood had been shed, though as the war ground on, incursions grew ever more widespread and unpredictable. These were the entities of the Warp, known by some by the arcane term 'Daemons', though many thought of them as aliens that simply existed within the Immaterium much as the dreaded parasite Psychneuein did, or as psychic phenomena—mortal insanity given physical, albeit temporary form with the rise in warp storm activity across the galaxy.

战帅还有一类可供召唤的盟友，此类势力在那些亚空间邪教兴起会血流成河的地方最为场景，但随着战争推进，它们的入侵也变得更为普遍且不可预测。这些盟友是亚空间实体，某些人用神秘晦涩的术语“恶魔”来称呼它们，不过很多人将它们视为极其类似于寄生性的噬灵蜂那样仅存在于非物质宇宙的异形物种，或者视之为灵能现象——是随着整个银河系中亚空间风暴活动的增加，人类的疯狂被赋予了暂时的物质形体。

Few perceived the true danger or power of such creatures, nor would they for some time yet. Eventually, many of the Traitor Legions would fight side by side with the legions of the abyss, sharing their sins and chanting the names of the same powers. But at the time of the Warmaster's conquest of the northern Imperium, most of the Legiones Astartes, with the notable exception of the Word Bearers, still considered them anathema to their principles or disregarded them as mere dangerous Warp phenomena, although particularly within the ranks of the Emperor's Children that was rapidly changing, even in the early years of the Age of Darkness. The truth —often now overlooked——is that for many years after Isstvan, most of the Traitor Legions were concerned more with a political rebellion and with imposing a new order on the Imperium than with surrendering it to the anarchy and Warp-rent chaos that would descend in the latter years of the Heresy.

很少有人能意识到这些生物真正的危险和力量，而且人类在一段时间内也不会意识到这些内容。最终，许多叛军军团都将与这支自深渊而来军团并肩作战，贡献它们的罪恶并高呼相同权能的名讳。但当战帅征服帝国北部区域时，除了怀言者军团这个显著的例外，大部分军团都仍旧认为恶魔是违背其自身信条原则的可憎恶物，或者认为他们不过是危险的亚空间现象而已，正处于快速变化中的帝皇之子军团尤为如此，哪怕是在黑暗年代的早期。现在的我们也经常会忽略一个事实，那就是在伊斯特万事件后的很多年中，大部分叛军军团更关心的是（如何）进行一场政治上的叛乱并向帝国强行施加新秩序，而非让帝国陷入无政府状态和亚空间导致的混乱——但这种状况还是会在大叛乱后期降临。

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