【战锤40k同人作品翻译】Ennui 第十四章：阴影 Shadows
本章概述：
这一次，伊莎莱太慢了。
In which Isarae is, for once, too slow.
正文：
一场风暴在安菲特里亚上空爆发。
我尽可能地带着速度和优雅移动，同时躲避着倾盆大雨。雨水中不知有什么类型的化学物质，而我也不想因没能设法躲开雨水而受到化学灼伤。
这场雨的成因很可能是所有这些被喷到空中的碎屑以及自兽人的粗糙炮台射向天空的持续不断的地对空火力。然而，空气中有一种厚重感，某些更为宽广的事物正在赶来，或许是来自几十公里外的海岸线。
如同地震前的轻颤一样，这预示着一场更猛烈的风暴正在向内陆推进，我觉得离它的到来还有三十或四十个昼夜。
不过这或许也是种祝福。帝国卫军仍然在试图管控登陆场，但从我所瞥见的在巢都附近爆发的数场小规模战斗和交火来看，他们似乎运气并不好，而风暴的掩护可能会改变这一点。
不过，我并不惊讶于他们的接连失败，毕竟将兽人从城市地带中挖出来的那种烦躁感很少有其他类型的敌人能比拟。由于不缺乏小巷子和大量能让它们拼凑出丑恶的技术产品的废料，这样的城市几乎不值得重新占领。
尽管如此，我认为这样的努力是应有的，即便被击落的炮艇上的士兵中没人同意这点。
当我离那远离着我所知的兽人密集点的尖塔越来越远时，我笑了起来。正如它们所有的同类那样，兽人聚集在一起，掠夺并摧毁任何触手可及的东西，成群结队地从一个地方转移到另一个地方，一个尖塔到另一个尖塔，带走任何没被螺栓固定着的闪亮或危险的物品，然后撕下任何仍被固定着的。
不过，即便兽人们也只有这么多的可供光顾的尸体，而且也不乏完好无损的尖塔。
我落在其中一个明显比周围的要精致许多的尖塔的阳台上，并调整了我带来的挎包的带子以便携带任何我可能找到的东西。
门都紧闭着，我则心血来潮地用手拂过它们，欣赏着主人显然花了很多功夫来配置的坚硬的装甲玻璃。锁是生物识别的，装饰华美的门也是被加固过的，但这完全不足以将我拒之门外。
我的剃刀连枷伸展到了它的全长，拇指沿着绑定在骨质柄上的反应网孔滑动，将之缩回到刀片的形状，我随后将其高高举起，然后直接向下挥到阳台的双开门正中间的缝隙里。黑暗精灵的刀刃轻易地切开了螺栓锁定机构，片刻之后，一阵刺耳的刮擦声响了起来，提示了某种警报系统的到来。
我无视了这一点，踢开门走了进去。
“现在……食物，药品补给……还有什么？”我扫视着这栋华丽的建筑若有所思地说。
“停止行动，立刻投降！”
一阵通过扭曲的机械发声器发出的呆板的尖叫响起，我转身看到一个帝国机仆——那些切除了脑叶的血肉机器中的一员——从墙上的壁龛里现身。它的下半身被某种昆虫般的六足底盘所取代，不知为何还镀了一层金，它的手臂早已被截肢，取而代之的是一个由四只机械臂组成的武器系统，每侧各两个，每一个末端都带着一根噼啪作响的放电警棍。
“嗯……不，我不觉得我会，”我片刻之后回答道，然后放下挎包，再次用拇指翻动网状织物，以此在我跳向那笨重的构造体时释放了剃刀连枷上的张力。
它以令人敬佩的速度移动起来，以一系列复杂的弧形攻击挥舞着它所有的武器，如果我直冲上去的话就会被放倒在地。
然而，这个构造体有一个格外明显的盲点，而我则欣然利用之。由于其攻击力全部用于前向，它无法攻向自己的下方，而我一边疾驰向前一边压低姿态从它的交叉攻击下滑过。
随着我在它身后现身，我手腕的一阵抖动令剃刀连枷弯曲起来，尾随着我缠绕在了它腿上的陀螺仪和驱动件上。
“请就坐，好吗？”我用力一拉我的连枷，刀片们同时切断了它的全部四条腿的关节，使之从体内泵出了阵阵恶臭的液压液和某种营养泥的喷流，溅在了精美的地毯上。
它开始念叨起了自己的机械语句，为它经受的灾难性的损害列举出各种错误代码。又是一个迅猛的动作，它的脑袋便飞了起来，随后是它的手臂，最终，它的各类系统同时迎来宕机，这东西的生命力随着一声古怪的机械打嗝声终止了。
“真是恶心，”我一边评论道，一边将挎包扯离缓慢扩张的恶臭、浑浊的绿色有机润滑剂混合物——我相信它也兼作血液。
我在这家里四处走动，忽略了正中央时不时地冒出火花的尸体，并找到了许多防腐的食物。大多都是某种宣称有各种口味的“绿色豆制品（Soylens Viridiens，也就是尸体淀粉）”，我压根不确定这些对口味的描述是否准确。即便如此，这也比挨饿要好，并且我和亚历桑德拉当前占据的住所内没有太多食物可供选择。
我耸了耸肩，我把这些罐头装进挎包。更多象征性的探索让食物上多了一个满载的医疗用品包，我因而决定把喷气摩托带过来，这样我就能在兽人把它们肮脏的绿手伸过来前带回更多的补给。
我的探索将我带入了卧室，并发现了一些华而不实的物品，毫无疑问地，兽人会很乐意偷走它们。我把这些东西留给了绿皮，它们对我来说没有任何用处，而且还挺难看的，不过我想普通的Mon-Keigh在美学造诣上并不比普通的兽人发达多少，对更多的他们来说也是如此。
我一时兴起地挑选了一些衣服。与我选择的住所的卧室不同，这个地方的陈设要复杂得多。例如衣柜就是由旋转着的人体模特构成的复杂机器，每个模特身上都穿着全套服装。
“我真搞不懂这群生物，”我轻声嘟哝着翻弄着各种选项。
那些女性人体模特看上去与亚历桑德拉的体型更为接近，这是最让我感兴趣的地方。尽管它与我的Cre’yth相比仍有些纤细，但那双肩膀制造了更多的空间，而它的身高也摆在那里。
“哦，那倒不算坏，”当倒数第二个选项呈现为一件看上去很舒适、带有金色纽扣的深绿色柔软休闲连衣裙时，我露出了笑容。
我把那件衣服从人体模特上取下，和食物藏在了一起。
在我转身离开衣橱回到主室的过程中，我愈发不安地盯着挎包。
食物是有实用价值的，药品也是。我不能再负担得起烧掉收集到的魂石碎片，在一卷绷带就足够应付的情况下也没理由再使用它们。
可这件裙子……
我想要把它送给亚历桑德拉，并非因为她需要它，而是因为我觉得她会喜欢。
“这对我有什么重要的吗？”我停在了阳台门边，把挎包放下来并盯着它，好像它刚刚为了什么不得体的事指责了我似的。
我希望她能喜欢它，因为……我想让她再次露出笑容。我希望她能像在我离开前那样对我微笑。她在那种简单的表情后喷薄而出的情感是独一无二的，而我想我要再次品味它们。
更重要的是，我希望她能笑出来。
“毫无疑问，我正在变成有史以来最烂的黑暗灵族，”我喃喃着拎起挎包。“不过我活不了多少天了，那看来这也没什么大不了。”
在我踏上阳台的瞬间。爆弹枪的开火声在我耳边响起，我皱起眉来寻找着源头。入侵的兽人的主力本该尚未到达这片区域，但这并不意味着一些零散的小股劫掠者们不会决定深入城市以拔得头筹。
更多的爆弹开火声，我眯起眼睛找出了几个单独的声源。
“七个，九个……不对，目前只有七把武器，”我数了数，其中一些枪声断断续续的，伴随着兽人射击小子制造的明显不健康的噪音模式，但另外三个有着平稳而鲜明的枪声。
帝国的爆弹枪，但更具体地讲……
我把挎包扔到阳台上，并向枪声的方位疾驰而去。它正迅速变得愈发密集，并正从一个像是帝国圣殿的地方传出来——这个比较小，所以我觉得应该是个小教堂，它被强行闯入的高拱门上压印着帝国天鹰。而天鹰旁的装饰物则有着亚历桑德拉脸上的三瓣花纹身样式的图案，这证实了我的怀疑。
那些爆弹枪不仅仅是帝国的，它们与亚历桑德拉使用的武器属于同一样式。
我在开火声停息时将将落到教堂的屋顶上，我低声咒骂着落到一处被炸开的窗户旁，向里面窥视着。
七个兽人：四个已经死了，两个受了轻伤，剩下的那个看起来完好无损。在教堂的中央是三个有着像亚历桑德拉那样雪白的发色的女性，被存活下来的兽人的爆弹雨击倒在自己的血泊中。这几个女人进行了一场令人倾佩的战斗，但说到底兽人还是太多了，而对于大多数类似的战斗来说都会是这样的情况。
看着她们横尸于此，眼神在无言的痛苦中逐渐凝滞，样子像极了我的亚历桑德拉，我的心中便燃起一股漆黑的怒火，随着剩下的兽人用潮湿、丑陋的喉舌轻笑着，吹嘘着，跨过死去的同类走向已死的战士们而燃烧得愈发猛烈。我能看到它们眼中闪烁着的贪欲，它们正开始剥去她们的武器和护甲，污损她们乃至更进一步地亵渎她们的尸体。
在我尚未细想我的行动时，那个第一个碰到尸体的未受伤的家伙就碎成几块加入了她们的行列。我降落在被掏空内脏的那个兽人中，猛甩着连枷清理掉上面的血迹，并用看死尸的目光望向它剩下的同伴。
“你们活不过三个数，”我平静地用哥特语向它们宣告。
一。
那两个兽人中的第一个和更聪敏的那个举起了它的突突枪打出了四散开来的三枪。我穿梭在子弹间，让它们无害地从我身边飞过，撞击并引爆在了教堂的远端。
二。
第二个兽人彻底丢开了他的爆弹枪向我冲来，并举起重斧，挥出了我就算睡着了都能躲开的粗糙弧线。我绕开了他，像绕过山峦的暴风一样逃脱了他的攻击，对第一个兽人因毫不在意自己的同伴而继续开火而数度擦伤了它笑得合不拢嘴。
三。
我从下方劈断了挥斧兽人的双腿，并在同一个动作中抽出一支毒晶手枪，把大量携带神经毒素的一阵弹片从稍远的那个兽人的左眼窝打进了他的脑壳，他便随着自己结实但过分简单的神经系统被糊成一滩泥而向后栽倒。现在已经没有双腿的最后一个兽人砸向地面时带着痛苦的怒吼——在我用连枷沿着身体将他从腹股沟劈到头顶时戛然而止。
我低头看着这混乱不堪的场面，不禁皱起了眉头，然后走过兽人们站到了那三个女人上方。
亚历桑德拉。
战斗修女，她如此称呼自己那一类人。说真的，她们看起来确实像姐妹一样……想到她们中的某一个可能和亚历桑德拉有血缘关系，这景象就让我的胃在仇恨中扭曲。
“我并不认识你们，”我轻声说道，“你们也无疑会在见到我的一瞬间就会对我展开杀戮。”我跪下来伸出手，将手掌放到她们每一个人身上，合上她们的双眼，使之看上去安详了些。“但她也应该会让我试着解救你们，而我……而我自责于自己没能做到这点，如果我一定要告诉她，更多她的姐妹们已经死去，那她在这之后的一段时间都不会再对我露出笑容。”
我站起身来，低头看了她们一会儿，然后转向被强行打开的门。看样子，修女们并没有来得及恰当地封堵住教堂，所以这教堂并没有被炸开，兽人们只是用肌肉强行挤进了那扇双开门。
我阔步走到门口，刻意避开了兽人的尸体，我把肩膀靠在沉重的门上将它们一一合上，放下大而沉重的横木——如果修女们来得及把它设置好的话也就就能坚持到我来救她们，随后我转过身去扫视着这座圣殿。
“为什么要来这里？”我若有所思。“寻求你们的尸皇的庇护？它可真帮了大忙了。”
我绕开所有的死者走到神殿中央的雕像前，上下打量着它。那是一个女性，看起来很像这些修女们，她的眼睛低垂下来看着这间教堂，但却穿着一件比其他人的更古老的盔甲，手握一柄长矛，其尖端刺向下方看上去像是某个对混沌卵的稍微体面的艺术呈现。
“等等……”我向雕像走近几步，仔细查看着这件盔甲。“它是不是……”
我瞪大了眼睛。
它是实物。
原文：
A storm had broken over Amphitria.
I moved with as much speed and grace as possible while avoiding the downpour, there was no telling what kind of chemicals were in that water and I had no desire to develop chemical burns because I hadn’t managed to stay out of the rain.
The rain was most likely a result of all the detritus being spewed into the air and the constant ground to air fire being lobbed skyward by the Ork’s crude gun batteries. There was a thickness in the air though, something more expansive was coming in, probably from the coastline several dozen kilometers away.
Like a tremor before a quake, this was a herald of a much greater storm pushing inwards, and I gave it another thirty or forty cycles before it made it here.
Perhaps that would be a blessing though. The Imperials still trying to manage landing zones but didn’t seem to be having much luck from the few glimpses I got of the various skirmishes and firefights being waged around the Hive, and storm-cover might change that.
Not that I was surprised at their ongoing failure, though, since there were few foes quite as irritating to dig out of an urban landscape than the Orks. With no shortage of alleyways and plenty of scrap for them to hodge-podge together their hideous excuses for technology, such cities were rarely worth retaking.
Still, I suppose credit for the effort was due, even if all the soldiers aboard the shot-down gunships would disagree.
I chuckled as I ranged further from the spire away from where I knew the Orks had been most dense. Like all the rest of their kind, Orks congregated en masse, looting and destroying anything in reach and moving in a horde from one place to the next, spire by spire, taking anything shiny or dangerous that wasn’t bolted down and ripping up whatever was.
Still, even the Orks only had so many bodies to go around, and there were no shortage of spires that were still intact.
I landed on the balcony of one such spire that was significantly nicer than most of the rest around it and adjusted the strap of the satchel I’d brought along for carrying whatever I might find.
The doors were shut, and on a whim I slid my hand over them, admiring the hard armorglass that the owner had clearly put quite a bit of work into. The lock was biometric and the fancifully adorned doors were reinforced, and it was not going to be nearly enough to keep me out.
My razorflail snapped to its full length, and I slid my thumb along the reactive mesh bound into the bone handle to retract it back into its blade form, then raised it high before swinging straight down the middle where the double doors of the balcony met. The Druchi blade cut through the bolted locking mechanism with ease, and a moment later a sharp, grating buzz sounded heralding some kind of alarm system.
I ignored it as I kicked the doors open and stepped inside.
“Now… food, medical supplies… what else?” I mused as I glanced about the lushly appointed domicile.
“CEASE MOVEMENT AND SURRENDER!”
The voice was a mechanical scream pushed through a distorted vocaliser and I turned to see an Imperial servitor, one of those lobotomised flesh machines, emerged from an alcove on the wall. It’s lower half had been replaced with some kind of insectile six-legged chassis, gilded with gold for some reason, and its arms had been amputated and replaced with a weapon system consisting of four mechanical limbs, two on each side, each ending in a spiked baton which crackled with electrical discharge.
“Mm… no, I don’t think I will,” I replied after a moment before dropping the satchel and thumbing the mesh weave again to release the tension on the razorflail just as I leapt towards the hulking construct.
It moved with admirable speed, swinging all of its weapons in a complicated arcing series of blows that would have crushed me to the floor if I’d been coming straight at it.
The construct had a particularly obvious blind spot, however, which I gleefully took advantage of. For all of its forward-facing attack power, it had no ability to strike beneath it, and as I surged forward I dropped low and slid under its crossing blows.
A twitch of my wrist as I came up behind it sent my razorflail twisting as it trailed after me to tangle around the gyros and actuators of its legs.
“Take a seat, won’t you?” I gave my flail a hard tug and the blades cut through all four of its legs at the joints simultaneously, sending spurts of noisome hydraulic fluid and some kind of nutrient grime that was pumped through its body spilling across the fine carpeting.
It began blurting its machine cant, reciting various error codes for the catastrophic damage it had taken. Another quick movement and its head went flying, followed by its arms, and finally, the thing’s animating force gave up with an odd, mechanical burp as its various systems suffered simultaneous failure.
“Disgusting,” I remarked as I plucked my satchel back up and away from the slowly expanding pool of foul-smelling and vaguely green bio-organic lubricant mixture that, I believed, also doubled as blood.
I moved around the home, ignoring the occasionally sparking carcass in the middle of it, and found a good number of nonperishable bits of food. Mostly something called ‘Soylens Viridiens’ of various purported flavors that I wasn’t certain were accurate descriptors of their taste at all. Still, it was better than starving, and the small set of quarters Alessandra and I were currently occupying didn’t have much in the way of food.
With a shrug, I stashed the cans in the satchel. A further amount of token snooping turned up a decently filled kit of medical supplies which went on top of the food, and I resolved to bring the jetbike back here so I could take back more of the supplies before the Orks got their grubby green hands on it.
My exploring took me into the bedrooms, and I found a quite of bit of gaudy accouterment that the Orks would no doubt happily steal. I left those for them, they served me no purpose and looked awful, but I suppose the average Mon-Keigh isn’t much more aesthetically developed than the average Ork, so more for them.
On a whim, I sifted through some of the clothing. Unlike the bedchambers of the quarters I’d chosen, this place had a far more elaborate setup. The closet, such as it was, was a complicated machine made up of revolving mannequins that were each dress in full outfits.
“I do not understand these creatures,” I muttered quietly as I thumbed through the various selections.
My interest was mostly kept by the fact that the female set of mannequins seemed to be much closer to Alessandra’s frame. Still a bit wispy by comparison to my Cre’yth, but the shoulders had more room to them, and the height was there.
“Oh that’s not bad,” I smiled as the second-to-last selection turned up a long, comfortable-looking lounging dress of some soft, dark green material accented with gold buttons.
I pulled that one off of the mannequin and stashed it along with the food.
As I turned away from the closet and made my way back out to the main room, I stared down at the satchel with growing unease.
The food was sensible, the medicine was too. I couldn’t afford to burn through the Spirit Stone fragments I’d collected, and there was no reason to use them when a bandage would do just fine.
The dress though…
I wanted to give it to Alessandra, not because she needed it but because I thought she might like it.
“Why does that matter to me?” I paused at the balcony doors and set the satchel down, staring at it as if it had just accused me of something indecorous.
I wanted her to like it because… I wanted her to smile again. I wanted her to smile at me the way she had before I’d left. The outpouring of emotion she’d felt on the heels of that simple expression had been unique, and I wanted to taste them again.
More than that though, I wanted her to smile.
“I am, without a doubt, becoming the worst example of a Druchari to ever live,” I mumbled as I hefted the satchel. “But I’m going to die in a few cycles, so I don’t suppose it matters.”
Bolter fire met my ears as I stepped onto the balcony, and I furrowed my brow as I scanned for the source. The main body of the Ork incursion shouldn’t have reached this area yet, but that didn’t mean some small splinter group of looters hadn’t decided to make their way further into the city to get first pick.
More bolter fire, and I narrowed my eyes as I picked out the individual sounds.
“Seven, nine… no, just seven weapons now,” I counted multiple shots, a few cutting off here and there, with the distinctly unhealthy barking pattern of noise that Orkish shootas made, but the other three had smooth, sharp reports.
Imperial bolters, but more specifically…
I dropped the satchel on the balcony and hared off towards the gunfire. It was picking up in earnest, and it was coming from what looked like an Imperial shrine, a small one, so a chapel I supposed, and it was embossed with the Imperial eagle along the high archway that made up its broken-open entrance. The embellishments around the eagle, though, carried the repeating pattern of that three-petaled flower tattoo that decorated Alessandra’s cheek, confirming my suspicions.
Those bolters weren’t just Imperial, they were the same mark of weapon that Alessandra used.
I had barely landed on the roof of the chapel as the weapons fire ceased, and I cursed under my breath as I dropped to a blown-out window, and I peered inside.
Seven Orks; four dead, two lightly wounded, the other looked unscathed. In the middle of the chapel were three women with pale hair the same snowy color of Alessandra’s, splayed out in a wash of their own gore, cut down by a hail of bolter fire from the surviving Orks. The women had put up an admirable fight, but in the end there were just too many Orks, and that was going to be the case for most of these little holdouts.
Seeing them laying there, dead, their eyes glazed over in silent agony and looking so very much like my Alessandra, set a black flame of rage in my chest that bloomed hotter as the remaining Orks chuckled and bragged in their wet, ugly, guttural tongue while they stepped over their fallen kin towards the dead warriors. I could see the glint of greed in their eyes, they were set on stripping them of their weapons and armor, defacing them and defiling the bodies even further.
The unscathed one who reached the bodies first joined them in several pieces on the floor before I could even consider my own actions. I landed amidst the eviscerated Ork, lashing my flail around me to clear the gore from it, and glared death at its remaining fellows.
“You die in a three-count,” I informed them quietly in Gothic.
One.
The first and quicker of the two raised his shoota and fired three scattered shots. I wove between them, letting the rounds fly harmlessly around me to impact and detonate at the far end of the chapel.
Two.
The second dropped his bolter entirely and charged me, raising a heavy axe and swinging it in a crude arc that wouldn’t have hit me if I were asleep. I stepped around him, slipping past his blows like a stormfront ‘round a mountain, and grinned as the first Ork continued to fire heedless of his own ally, winging him several times.
Three.
I cut the legs out from under the axe-wielding Ork, and in the same motion drew one of my splinter pistols and unloaded a heavy spray of the neurotoxic shards into the brainpan of the further Ork through its left eye, and he keeled over backwards as his robust but simplistic nervous system was turned into a slurry of meat. The now-legless and last Ork struck the ground with a roar a rage and agony that was ended abruptly as I snapped my flail along the length of his body, splitting him from groin to crown.
I looked down at the mess and grimaced, then stepped over the Orks to stand over the three women.
Alessandra.
Sisters of Battle, she had called her kind. Truly, they did look like sisters… any one of them could have been blood-related to Alessandra and the sight of it made my stomach twist in hatred.
“I do not know you,” I said quietly, “and no doubt you would have slain me on sight had you encountered me,” I knelt and reached out, laying a hand over each one, closing their eyes and giving them a semblance of peace. “But she would have had me try to save you, and I… I regret that I could not have done so, if only because I must now tell her that more of her sisters are dead, and she will not smile for me for some time after that.”
Standing, I stared down at them for a few more moments before turning to the doors that had been forced open. From the look of it, the Sisters hadn’t had the opportunity to properly barricade the chapel so it hadn’t been blown open, the double-doors had just been forced in by Orkish muscle.
Striding over to the doors, past the Ork corpses which I studiously avoided the remains of, I put my shoulder to each of the heavy doors and closed them, lowered the large, heavy crossbar that might have preserved the Sisters long enough for me to reach them had they been able to set it, then turned to look over the Shrine.
“Why here?” I mused quietly. “Seeking the protection of your corpse Emperor? Much good it did you.”
I moved past all of the dead to the statue in the center of the shrine and looked it up and down.
It was a woman, much like the sisters, with its eyes cast down to look over the chapel itself, but it was wearing an older mark of armor than the others and gripping the shaft of a long spear with its tip thrust downward into what looked like a half-decent artistic representation of a chaos spawn.
“Wait…” I stepped closer to the statue and examined the armor. “Is that…”
My eyes widened.
It was real.
