【战锤40k同人作品翻译】Ennui 第六章：发现 Found
本章概述：
战斗修女被事实证明不是帝皇的意志的存在拯救。
In which a Sister of Battle is saved by what turns out is not the Will of the Emperor.
正文：
敲击声在我耳边响起。
是一声心跳。
我抬头看向一打围着我的兽人之一的狰狞面目，它凶恶地狞笑着举起手中坑坑洼洼的巨斧，我意识到这是我的最后一声心跳，
牢骚的笑声在我周围响起，我把爆弹枪紧贴在胸前，紧盯着即将由绿皮降下的残忍，血腥的死亡。我抱紧我珍贵的武器，祈祷它能与我共死而非让那个年轻的机魂饱受某个兽人技霸的奴役。
“帝皇庇佑，”我低声啜泣，绿皮高举起斧头，随后以令人痛苦的迟钝落下。
“帝皇——”
鲜血撒在我的脸上，在一只绿皮断臂从我身边掠过时像从水管里喷出来一样打湿了我的前额。疑惑的兽人傻看着我，明显地不解于为什么我没被它这一击劈成两段，又缓慢地看向它手臂曾经在的地方。
那只手臂恰好被在手肘以上截断，血从骇人的断面上奔涌而出。兽人看起来几乎没明白发生了什么，用不存在的手伸向我却只发现血从那只被截断的手腕里滴出。
“啥玩意儿？”这是它在一阵咔嚓声响起前发出的唯一声音，随后兽人就被利落地切成了一打碎块，在我身上洒下了更多的粘液。
我眨了眨眼，在某个影像从我眼前闪过时和其它兽人一样震惊。金属割开金属的声音充斥着我的耳朵，随即又是更多的咔嚓声，切割皮革声，和肢体爆裂声。
血和旋转的刀刃在我的视线前抽搐痉挛，我根本无法看清何为来者，可它正似刀刃上反射的月光一般穿过兽人集群。
那光芒闪烁之处均伴随着兽人的死亡，而且它们死得迅速到无暇发出吼叫。只有一团混杂不清的，空气和金属的噼啪声，和动脉血喷溅的噗哧声，好似春天在修道院旁生长的树木的花瓣一样散落成碎片。
我站了起来，毫不在意身边的兽人，在原地转身以求追上那个身影。我从眼角的余光看到一个暴怒的兽人挥舞着斧头冲向我，试图将我拦腰斩断。
我没做任何动作，因为我心底的某处让我知道我不需要。那斧头在被切块前没能抵近离我一臂的距离，而它的兽人主人在半个呼吸间也步了后尘。
在那个瞬间，我觉得我看清了。
一道苍白的肉体，漆黑的护甲，和日出般的长发组成的闪电。冰紫色的眼睛，像极了家乡的花朵，在极短的一瞬间对上了我的目光，我心底的某物似乎恢复了原状，虽然我说不出是什么。
我只知晓我看到的一切，以及那美丽的紫藤色的眼睛也看到了我。
我的心跳得像滑过平静湖面的石子，随后又消失不见，更多的兽人死在石子留下的尾流中。
死亡如圣风般刮过广场，我不断地在原地转身，以求看到它们，徒劳地试图捕捉这个人影，这个绘画家，在安菲特里亚的皮肤上净化绿皮寄生虫时留下的另一个瞬间。
我走神了，走神得太过了，尽管我的附近已经没有兽人，但我忘记了其中一些还记得该如何正确地使用它们粗糙的爆弹枪。
武器的开火声撕裂了广场，我随着被质量反应弹药命中而猛得打转。射击的角度很差，而冲击力则被动力甲的弧度破坏，使得爆弹旋转着在离我几指的位置引爆，炸得我无法呼吸，痛苦地倒在地上，还溅了我一身的金属碎片。
我咳嗽着吐出鲜血，蜷缩起来以保护肯定已经断掉的几根肋骨。我希望这些血不意味着穿孔，毕竟我可能还得等好几天才能得到恰当的护理。
一阵高昂，悦耳，完全是报复性的呐喊响了起来，令我的骨骼咔咔作响，视线一时扭曲，我抬头看到那个之前射击我的兽人捂着头痛哭地咕哝着，就在…….
就在那个人影像泰拉的金色天鹰般横扫而过前，她好美。
她的皮肤苍白，她在绕着兽人优雅地周旋时的动作如同舞动在水面上的光线一样充盈着我的视线。她鞭子一样的武器——仅由连在一起的一截截刀片贴在弯曲的剑柄上构成——在她身侧疾驰着劈开这个兽人，如同它落成一地尸块前压根不存在一样。
当我蜷缩在地上吐血时，我意识到它是最后一个。人影终于停止了动作，在她这么做的同时我终于能清楚地看到她占据了我腹部右下方的视野（此处翻译存疑）。
“异形，”我血淋淋的嘴唇嘶嘶地出声。
不是随便什么异形，而是一个艾达灵族。古老，不朽，狡诈得难以形容，灵族说谎就如其他种族呼吸一般，通过扭曲词句和含义以配合他们难以理解的外星议题。
她肯定已经听到我了，因为她在我吐出这个词时便转身面对我。她几乎是全裸的，我不由得脸红起来。她的胸甲被切割到几乎称不上这个名字，其所声称的远比实际覆盖住的要多。她腰部以下的矜持只限于窄到不能再窄的一块布料和一件短披风长度的长条衣物，流淌着灵族文字的布料在她的双腿前后之间飘动。
缀有利刃的前臂甲和胫甲包住了她的左侧的手臂和腿的肘部和膝部以下，在右侧则直达肩膀和臀部，她的红色长发如倾泻的火焰般柔顺地环绕着脸和后背。
难以置信，她一滴血都没沾到。
灵族缓慢地靠近，即便我不知道她为什么救下了我，我现在却比在被兽人包围时更加确信，自己死期将至。
我把爆弹枪磁锁起来，拔出已经豁口的战斗刀向她挥舞，令我们之间的距离时长时短。
“滚开，女巫！“我痛骂着，摇摇晃晃地站起来却失败了，一头跪在地上。“我不会……我不是……”
我喘息着，气息小股小股地涌入，我的视野扭曲着，她则像我靠近，用她那嘶嘶作响的曲折的外星语言讲话。
“帝皇护佑着我，异形女巫！”我颤抖着举起刀，明白这对于一个能在片刻间歼灭整个连的兽人的存在来说只是种可笑的防御手段。
她面无表情地看了我一会儿，又甩了甩武器以清理掉上面的残留物，将之盘在腰间锁住，又把手伸向我。
我愣愣地看着她的手。
“什……什么?”我越过手看向她。“我该怎么做——”
“你现在在地上，”灵族用轻柔的哥特语说，“我正向你伸出援助之手。”
“我……你什么？”
她一动不动地站在那里伸出手，我压低了刀刃。这一定是个把戏，但目的何在？我不是个有用的工具，我已经半死不活。她不需要靠把戏来杀我，事实上，她本可以直接击翻我再踩上我的喉咙，而我对此什么也做不了。
灵族对着我眯起眼睛，随后走进了几步，跪下来把一只手放在我的脸颊上。
她几乎是轻柔地托我的脸颊，金属的冷冽令我颤抖，她转动我的头，同时用她那超自然的人外眼球凝视着我的眼睛。
“脑震荡，”过了片刻她说到，“此外你也受伤了，不要动。”
她暂时退后，在手套下暗藏的小口袋里翻找着，随后抽出了一块深红色的宝石，重新跪在我的身边，把它贴上我的额头。
在我能反抗前，她发出一阵细微的颤音，我随后感觉自己的身体在一阵近乎剧烈的痉挛中自行恢复。片刻后我感觉精神焕发，思绪比过去几天来更加专注和敏锐，就好像我刚吃完一顿饭，然后好好休息了一晚一样。
她把宝石收回它来的地方，又站起身来，再次伸出手。
“好点了？”灵族问道，我呆滞地点点头。
我盯了她伸出的手臂一会儿，然后用力地咽了口唾沫，伸出胳膊搭上她的手。她以惊人的力量接过去并把我拉起来，而我更惊讶地意识到她到底有多高。
她就像一个并非被糟糕地拉长的人类。她的手臂，双腿，和躯干很苗条，被纤细的肌肉牵拉起来。她的脸有着苍白而优雅的曲线，她的眼睛……神皇宽恕我，但她的眼睛太美了。
“过来，Cre'yth，”她从我身边走过时以抑扬顿挫的古怪口气轻快地说到，点头让我跟上。“兽人会被战斗的声响吸引，它们很快就会包围我们。”
她走过我身边，没再说别的什么，我盯了她几秒，思考起我的选项。
这个灵族没有威胁我，没有诓骗我，没有试图操纵我，在我们短暂的互动中也没有对我多说什么。不仅如此，她似乎还耗费了某种巫术来治愈我，不过从宝石立刻失去了光泽来看我只得假设这件事不可重复。
现在她要离开还……什么？
提议让我同去？
“我们准备去那栋楼，Cre'yth，”她指向一座被其它更大的尖顶建筑簇拥着的较小的一个，“那里已经被开辟过，又很小，因此目前较不可能有绿皮出没。”
我这才意识到自己正跟着她，随着脊背间的一阵战栗，我停了下来。
“你对我做了什么？”我厉声问道，手伸向腰间的战斗刀，尽管我知道这毫无用处，“我……我是修女会的神圣姐妹，帝皇之女，你别想刺探我的思想，女巫！”
她转过身来，像是饶有兴致地打量着我。
“女巫，你如此称呼我，”她轻笑起来，温暖又嘶哑的声音让我内心痒痒的。
“精确的，但也是错误的，毕竟我知道你的意思是什么，Cre'yth，我并不是此等力量的持有者。”
“你们种族都与亚空间有染，灵族，”我尖锐地指控到，并从她身旁后退一步，她皱起了眉头。
“再说一遍，你讲得既错也对，但无论如何我们都得离开这里，除非你想加入你在兽人锅里的同胞之列，”她轻蔑地指出，我的心随即猛地攥紧。
“你看到我的姐妹被——”这个念头哽住了我，我曾觉得她们最好已经身死，可……
“姐妹？”她歪了歪头，随后以一种古怪的人类姿态耸了耸肩，“我不知道她们是否是你说姐妹，但她们是人类，而人类对我来说长得都差不多。”
尽管这已经够糟糕的。我还是稍感安慰，这个灵族见到的可能不是我的修女姐妹，而是安菲特里亚的平民。当然，得知帝国的忠仆正被可怖的绿皮拿来果腹本不应该好些，但可耻的是我不得不承认这并不一样。
“我……我知道了，”我轻声叹道，“不过，我不能相信你们这一类，灵族……你们骨子里是骗子和操纵者，你会背叛我，帝国信条如此告之。”
“如果我是任何其他的灵族，我会赞同你所说的，”她回答道，我被她的赞同打得措手不及，“但我来着只是为了一个单纯的目的。”
“那是什么，灵族？”我加重语气，但她明显没有咬上我确实很幼稚的鱼饵。
取而代之的是，她以一种直击我内心深处的表情看着我。并非因为她是外星人，而是因为这表情非常非常的…….人性化。她看上去空洞，破碎，以及……
孤独？
“我是来寻死的，”她的回答简明扼要。
原文：
A beat thumped in my ears.
A heartbeat.
My final heartbeats, I realised, as I stared up into the bestial face of an Ork, one of the dozens that were surrounding me, while it smiled its mean, low smile, and raised the crude, pitted axe that it carried.
Low, grumbling laughter surrounded me, and I clutched my bolter to my chest as I stared up at the brutal and bloody death that was about to descend on me at the hands of a Greenskin. I hugged the precious weapon to me and prayed it would be destroyed with me rather than the young spirit being forced to suffer brutalisation by some Orkish Mek.
“The Emperor protects,” I sobbed quietly as the Greenskin’s axe rose up, then started to descend with what felt like aching slowness.
“The Emperor-”
Gore sprayed my face and drenched my front like it had been shot from a hose as the Greenskin’s severed arm went hurtling past me. The Ork in question stared dumbly at me, apparently confused as to why I hadn’t been split in half by its strike, then slowly looked over to the stump where its arm had once been.
It had been severed just above the elbow, and blood was gouting from the horrific wound. The Ork barely seemed to register it, and reached for me with its free hand only to find blood dripping from the severed wrist it found there.
“Wut?” Was the only noise it made before a snap filled the air and the Ork was neatly split into a dozen pieces, spraying me with yet more viscera.
I blinked, as stunned as the rest of the Orks as a figure flickered past my vision. The sound of metal shearing through metal filled my ears, followed by more snaps and the sounds of ripping leather, and explosions of body parts.
Blood and spiraling blades twitched and spasmed past my vision and it was impossible to keep an eye on whatever it was, but it was moving through the Ork horde like moonlight reflecting from the edge of a knife.
Wherever that light flashed, Orks died, and they died so quickly that they didn’t even have time to scream or bellow. There was just mass sounds of confusion, snaps of air and metal, and the spitting noise of arterial spray as they fell to scattering pieces like the spring petals of the trees that grew near the Order Abbey.
I stood, heedless of the Orks around me, turning and spinning in place as I tried to track the figure. From the corner of my eye I saw an enraged Ork turn to me and swing its axe, intent on splitting me at the waist.
I didn’t move because, somewhere in the back of my mind, I knew I didn’t have to. The weapon didn’t get within a handspan of me before the axe was sliced to pieces, and its Orkish wielder followed suit half a breath later.
At that moment I think I saw it.
A flash of pale flesh, dark armor, and long hair like a burning sunrise. Eyes of icy purple, so much like the flowers of home, met mine for the briefest of moments, and something in my heart seemed to right itself, although I couldn’t say what.
All I knew was what I saw, and that those beautiful Wisteria eyes saw me too.
My heart beat like a stone skipping across a placid pool, and then they were gone, and more Orks died in their wake.
Death swept through the plaza like a holy wind, and I kept turning and spinning in place, trying to watch them, trying in vain to catch another brief sight of the figure, the painter, as they cleansed the Greenskin parasite from the skin of Amphitria.
I was distracted, too distracted, and although there were no Orks near me I had forgotten that some of them still recalled how to use their crude bolters properly.
The bark of the weapon split the plaza and I spun in place as the mass-reactive round slammed into me. The angle of the shot was poor, and the impact was spoiled by the curvature of my powered armor sending the round spinning away to detonate a few fingers from me, knocking me breathless and aching to the ground and peppering me with fragmented metal.
I coughed and spat blood, curling in on myself to protect what were surely several cracked ribs. I hoped the blood didn’t mean I’d punctured anything because I was likely days away from a proper medicae.
A high, melodic, and utterly vengeful scream filled the air, rattling my bones and twisting my vision for a moment as I looked up to see the Ork who had shot me clutching its head and grunting in pain before-
The figure swept down like the Golden Eagle of Terra, and she was beautiful.
Pale skin, and movements like light dancing on water filled my eyes as she spun gracefully around the Ork. Her weapon, like a whip, only made up of linked and segmented blades and attached to a curving sword handle spun with her, splitting through the Ork like he wasn’t even there until it fell to pieces in a swelter of gore.
He was the last, I realised as I lay curled up on the ground spitting blood. The figure finally arrested her movements and, as she did, I finally got a good look at her sending the bottom right out of my stomach.
“Xeno,” I hissed through bloody lips.
Not just any Xeno either, but an Eldar. Ancient, immortal, and unspeakably devious, the Eldar lied as most races breathed, twisting words and meanings to suit their unfathomable alien agenda.
She must have heard me because she turned to face me the moment the word left my lips.
She was almost naked and I flushed in spite of myself. Her cuirass was slashed such that it barely deserved the name, suggesting far more than it covered. Her modesty below her waist was preserved only by the narrowest piece of fabric and a long, black, tabard-like length of cloth that fell and fluttered between her legs on both sides and bore Eldar script flowing across it.
Bladed vambraces and greaves covered her arms and legs up to her elbows and knees on her left side, and up to her shoulder and hip on her right, and her long red hair fell a smooth, waterfall of fire around her face and back.
And impossibly, she was utterly free of blood.
The Eldar approached slowly, and although I had no idea why she had saved me, I was even more certain now than I had been when I was surrounded by Orks, that I was about to die.
I maglocked my bolter, pulled my chipped combat knife, and brandished it at her, swinging the short, notched length between us.
“Begone, witch!” I spat as I tried to stagger to my feet, failed, and dropped to my knees, “I will not… I am not…”
I gasped, my breath was coming in short waves, and my vision swam, and she approached me speaking in her sibilant, twisting alien tongue.
“The Emperor protects me, xeno witch!” I shakily held up the knife, knowing it was a laughable defense against something capable of annihilating a company’s worth of Orks in the span of a few moments.
She regarded me impassively for a few moments, then shook her weapon a few times to clear it of any remains, coiled it around her waist, locked it there, and extended her hand to me.
I stared at it dumbly.
“W-What?” I looked past it up to her. “What am I supposed to-”
“You are on the ground,” the Eldar said in softly accented gothic. “I am offering you a hand up.”
“I’m… you what?”
I lowered my blade as she stood unmoving with her hand outstretched. This had to be a trick, but what was the point? I wasn’t a useful tool, I was half dead. She didn’t need to trick me to kill me, in fact, she could probably just knock me over and step on my throat, and I wouldn’t be able to do anything about it.
The Eldar narrowed her eyes at me, then stepped closer, knelt, and put a hand on my cheek.
I shivered at the coolness of the metal as she cradled my cheek almost gently, turning my head this way and that as she stared into my eyes with those unearthly, alien orbs of hers.
“Concussed,” she said after a moment, “you are wounded as well, do not move.”
She stepped away for a moment and fished through a small pocket concealed within her gauntlets, and drew out a tiny shard of some rich red gemstone, knelt by me again, and pressed it to my head.
Before I could protest, she let out a small, trilling note, and I felt my body seem to realign with itself with an almost violent jerk of motion. The moment passed and I was left feeling invigorated, my mind felt focused and sharper than it had in days as if I’d just eaten a full meal and followed it up with a good night’s rest.
She stowed the gem back from wherever it had come, stood again, and extended her hand once more.
“Better?” the Eldar asked, and I nodded dully.
I stared at the proffered limb for a moment before swallowing hard, reaching out, and putting my hand in hers. She took it with surprising strength and hauled me to my feet, and I was further surprised to realise how tall she was.
She was like a human had been stretched, but not poorly. Her arms, legs, and torso were willowy and corded with lean muscle. Her face was a study in pale, graceful curves, and her eyes…
God-Emperor forgive me, but her eyes were so beautiful.
“Come, Cre’yth,” she spoke with that curiously lilted accent of hers as she stepped past me, nodding for me to follow. “Orks are drawn to the sounds of battle, and will be among us shortly.”
She walked past me without another word, and I stared after her for several seconds as I considered my options.
The Eldar hadn’t threatened me, hadn’t lied to me, hadn’t attempted to manipulate me, nor had she spoken more than tersely to me over our short interaction. More than that, she had expended what appeared to be some kind of witchery to heal me, but from the way the gem had lost its luster immediately after I could only assume it wasn’t something that could be done again.
Now she was leaving and… what?
Offering for me to come with her?
“We make for that building, Cre’yth,” she gestured towards a lesser spire that was crowded by some of the larger ones. “It is subdued and small, and so less likely to be infested with Orks for now.”
I realised, belatedly, that I was following her, and halted as a shiver went down my spine.
“What did you do to me?” I snapped, my hand going to the combat knife at my waist even knowing it would be less than useless. “I… I am a sacred sister of the Adeptus Sororitas, a Daughter of the Emperor, and you will not worm into my mind, witch!”
She turned and regarded me with something like amusement.
“Wych, you call me,” she chuckled, and it was a warm, throaty sound tickled at my mind. “Accurate, but also wrong, for I know what it is you mean, Cre’yth, and I am no wielder of such powers.”
“All your kind truck with the Warp, Eldar,” I accused pointedly, taking a step back from her, and she frowned.
“Once more, you are wrong and right, but either way we must leave here unless you wish to join your fellows in the Orkish cookpots,” she remarked dismissively, and my heart wrenched.
You saw my sisters being-” I choked on the notion, I had thought it better they were dead but the…
“Sisters?” she cocked her head, then shrugged in a curiously human gesture. “I do not know if they were your sisters, but they were human, and humans look much alike to me.”
As terrible as it was, I felt a measure of comfort that the ones the Eldar had seen may not have been my fellow Sororitas, but civilians of Amphitria. Of course, it ought to have been no better to know that the faithful of the Imperium were filling the bellies of the monstrous Greenskins, but to my shame I had to admit that it was different.
“I… I see,” I breathed out a quiet sigh, “still, I cannot trust your kind, Eldar… you are liars and manipulators to your cores, and you will betray me, so sayeth the Imperial Creed.”
“Were I any other Aeldari, I would agree with you,” she replied, and I felt wrong-footed at her agreement, “but I am here for a singular purpose.”
“And what is that, Eldar?” I stressed the word, but she didn’t rise to my, admittedly childish, bait.
Instead she turned to regard me with an expression that struck me to my core. It wasn’t because it was alien, it was because it was so very, very… human. She looked empty, broken, and…
Lonely?
“I am here to die,” she said simply.
