HH6节译：战争铁砧之上的锤炼（1）
A Flawed Heart
心有不足
The storm of war came unbidden and unexpected to the northern expanses of the Imperium during the opening of the seventh year of the 31st Millennium, at the very outset of the wars that would later be known as the Horus Heresy; Spreading from the ruined worlds of the Isstvan System like a dark stain across the face of the Emperor's once-vast realm, the Legions sworn to the Traitor Warmaster took system after system, wielding lies, threats and cruel violence with equal abandon. Even as those who remained loyal struggled to comprehend the conflict that had taken form around them, the Traitors secured for themselves a dark realm in the far galactic north. Yet, even in its birthing throes, Horus' empire showed its flaws, for those of his brothers he had turned to his cause and named as warlords and satraps of his new conquests quickly fell to bickering at the slightest setback, ever-keen to place themselves above their brethren.
当时间来到第31个千年第七年的年初，战争的风暴降临到了人类帝国的北部疆域，它不请自来，也未被人们所预料到——这就是后世所谓“荷鲁斯叛乱”的开端。宣誓效忠于叛变战帅的军团们就如同一团黑暗的污渍，由被毁灭的伊斯特万世界向外扩散，蔓延进了帝皇那曾经广阔的领土，他们夺取了一个又一个星系，凭着谎言、威胁和残忍的暴力肆意妄为。尽管那些仍旧忠于帝皇的人们还在尽力去理解发生于自己周边的冲突，但叛徒们已然在遥远的银河北部为自己夺取了一片黑暗王国。然而，哪怕是在其诞生的阵痛中，荷鲁斯的帝国就已经显现出了缺陷：对于那些投靠于自己的兄弟们，荷鲁斯将其任命为新进被征服区域的军阀和总督，但只要遇到一点挫折，他们很快就会爆发争吵，每个人都总是急于将自己（的地位）置于众兄弟之上。
Of the early failures of Horus' great hosts, one of the most notable is the Siege of Epsilon-Stranivar IX, known to the armies of the Great Crusade as Fortress Stranivar, a conflict that features prominendy in several Legions' battle honours. Found at the very edges of the Coronid Deeps, Fortress Stranivar had at one point served as a forward staging point for the Great Crusade, and now stood as the last redoubt for broken Imperial battalions retreating from battlegrounds across the galactic north, the last Loyalist stronghold on Horus' flanks. A small Imperial Fists garrison, augmented by companies of the Raven Guard, Salamanders, Iron Hands and even a contingent of errant Blood Angels whose craft had evaded the pursuing forces of Horus, held the world, refusing to retreat in the face of overwhelming assault having sworn inviolable oaths to secure it in the Emperor's name. It fell to the amassed might of the Iron Warriors, Death Guard and Alpha Legion to cast down the Loyalists' fortifications and claim the defiant world for the Warmaster, a task that was to reveal the deeply graven flaws in Horus' host.
在荷鲁斯那庞大军队所遭遇的早期失败中，Epsilon-Stranivar IX攻城战是最值得记录的事件之一。Epsilon-Stranivar IX世界在大远征时期被称为Stranivar要塞，而这次战役在多个军团的战斗荣誉中都占有着重要地位。Stranivar要塞被建立了王冠深渊的最边界处，曾一度被用作大远征的前线集结点，现在则是那些自银河北境各处战场撤退的分崩离析帝国部队的最后堡垒，也是荷鲁斯侧翼方向上的最后一座忠诚派据点。把守此地的一支帝国之拳的小规模驻军，但他们得到了暗鸦守卫、火蜥蜴和钢铁之手的数个连队的支援，甚至还有一支圣血天使游侠分队提供协助——他们的飞船是在逃脱荷鲁斯叛军追兵的过程中流落此地。面对着压倒性的进攻，这些战士撤退，他们发下不容侵犯的誓言，要以帝皇之名保卫此地。为了攻破要塞，并为战帅夺取这个胆敢反抗的世界，一支由钢铁勇士、阿尔法军团和死亡守卫组成的大规模联军发动了进攻，而这次行动将会揭露出荷鲁斯派系军队中那根深蒂固的缺陷。
Where the Loyalist Legions stood shoulder to shoulder as brothers, united by their defiance of the Traitor Warmaster, each of the Legions sworn to Horus fought only for themselves. Each of the three waged a separate campaign, making little attempt to share resources or intelligence, and placing the blame for their failures on their rivals. In particular, the Iron Warriors contingent, the 114th Grand Battalion, was ill-used by its allies. Time and time again the Alpha Legion companies allowed them to attack unsupported into the guns of the dug-in Loyalists while using the confusion to mount their own spoiling attacks on high priority targets, claiming all the glory and ignoring the cost in lives paid by Perturabo's sons. During the climactic battle of the campaign, at the Siege of Vharna where the Traitor host broke on the Loyalists' lines, the 114th Grand Battalion was effectively abandoned by both the Alpha Legion and the Death Guard. Left to act as a sacrificial rearguard, of the 6,000 Iron Warriors who took to the field, less than a third would leave alive and the highest ranked officer who remained to them, Narik Dreygur of the Apolakron, swore that one day his fallen brothers would be avenged.
在这场战斗中，忠诚派军团战士们如兄弟般并肩作战，团结一心抵抗叛变的战帅；而宣誓效忠于荷鲁斯的军团们则是各自为战。三支叛变军团的部队自顾自地发起战役，几乎没有共享资源和情报，并将自己的失败归咎于竞争对手（的阻拦）。钢铁勇士分队——第114大营的境遇尤为恶劣，遭到了盟友们的恶意利用。阿尔法军团的连队反复让其在毫无支援的情况下进攻躲入战壕的忠诚派部队，直面枪林弹雨，而自己则趁乱对高优先度目标发动破坏袭击。阿尔法军团独占了所有荣誉，罔顾佩图拉博子嗣们付出的伤亡代价。在这场战役的高潮——Vharna攻城战中，叛军部队攻破了忠诚派防线，而第114大营也在实质上遭到了阿尔法和死亡守卫军团部队的抛弃。钢铁勇士们被留下充当了可牺牲的后卫部队，参战的6,000名军团战士中只有不到三分之一能活着离开，幸存者中级别最高的军官是阿博拉克隆兄弟会的纳雷克 德雷古尔，他发誓终有一日要为死去的兄弟们复仇。（机仆：Apolakron——Brethren of Steel，是钢铁勇士军团专门负责控制战斗机兵的兄弟会分支）
Victory for the Loyalists at Fortress Stranivar was but a temporary reprieve, with the planet falling to a renewed assault by the Sons of Horus Legion less than a year later, but its consequences would yet haunt the Traitors. For in the disunity of the vast host lay the only hope of victory for the scattered and outnumbered forces of the Emperor. Not only was it a strategy that was used time and again to blunt the Warmaster's assaults as news of the Loyalists' few victories spread throughout the beleaguered Imperium, but as each battle was fought, the rifts between the Traitor warlords and their followers grew ever wider and more volatile.
但忠诚派于Stranivar要塞所取得的胜利只是暂时的，不到一年之后，荷鲁斯之子军团便攻陷了这颗星球，但此事的后续影响会一直纠缠着叛军。虽然帝皇的部队分散且居于数量劣势，但战帅庞大军队中的不团结现象为他们提供了仅有的获胜希望。而随着忠诚派为数不多的获胜消息在受围困的人类帝国中传播开，这就不仅成为了忠诚派反复用于削弱战帅攻势的策略，而且随着战事推进，叛军军阀及其追随者之间的嫌隙也越发加重，彼此关系愈发恶化。
Devils from the Outer Dark
自外域黑暗而来的恶魔
While hope flickered dimly along the front lines of the war for the Imperium, many of the Emperor's strongest supporters were still uncertain of the events occurring in the far reaches of His wide dominion. On distant Nocturne, where Vulkan had left Nomus Rhy'tan as Keeper of the Legion fortress of Prometheus, there had been no news since the departure of the Primarch and the bulk of the Legion to Isstvan V almost a full standard year before. All that had reached the ears of the Lord Chaplain were disturbing rumours of a dark empire in the galactic north and of the fall of Primarchs, but no hint as to who had fallen and who stood victorious.
虽然有希望隐约闪现在帝国的战争前线，但对帝皇麾下诸多最为强大的支持者而言，他们仍然不知晓发生在帝国广阔疆域远方边境处的事件。在遥远的夜曲星上，自从原体和军团中大部分成员于大概一个标准年之前动身前往伊斯特万五号之后，伏尔甘留下的普罗米修斯军团要塞守备官——诺姆斯 瑞’坦便未收到过任何消息。传入这位领主牧师耳中的皆是令人不安的谣言：盘踞与银河北境的黑暗帝国，原体们的陨落，但这些传言并未提到谁已然陨落，谁又大获全胜。
With only the untested neophyte battalions and a few thousand instructors in his charge, Lord Chaplain Rhy'tan had little means to mount a second great expedition to investigate the fate of his lord, for to do so would leave Nocturne unprotected and violate the last orders he had received from Vulkan. Yet such a matter could not be simply ignored; without proper intelligence he was at equal risk of failing in his duty as Keeper and protector of the Salamanders Legion's home world.
领主牧师瑞’坦麾下只有未经受过考验的新兵战斗营，以及几千名教官，他几乎无法开展第二次大规模远征探索去调查自己主人的命运，这样做会让夜曲星失去保护，也违反了伏尔甘下达给他的最后命令。但他也不能将此事简单忽视掉；倘若没有合适的情报，作为火蜥蜴军团母星的守护者，他同样有失职的风险。
Where he could not dispatch a grand fleet to discover the fate of his lord and brothers, Rhy'tan would send a single ship. The prototype assault cruiser Ebon Drake was the first of a new breed of Legiones Astartes void craft, designed and constructed by the peerless artisans of the XVIIIth Legion to complement the tactical preferences of her post-human masters, rather than a simple refit of some ancient mark of battleship. Lean and deadly, the Ebon Drake would seek out the truth for Rhy'tan as well as any hastily assembled battle squadron, and should his worst fears prove true, would perhaps be better suited to evade whatever ill had befallen Vulkan and his brothers.
虽然瑞’坦不能派出一支庞大的舰队去查清自己主人和兄弟们命运，但他可以只派出一艘飞船。原型打击巡洋舰“乌木火龙”号是新一代阿斯塔特军团虚空舰船中的第一艘，它由第十八军团那些杰出的工匠们打造，目的是满足其超人类主人们的战术偏好，而非简单地改造了某些古老型号的战舰。乌木火龙号精简且致命，它将会为瑞’坦和任何仓促组建起的战斗中队找出真相；而倘若牧师最担忧的状况成真的话，或许乌木火龙号更适合让探索中队躲过降临到伏尔甘与其兄弟们身上的灾祸——无论那是什么。
Rhy'tan himself could not depart Nocturne, and he had few seasoned warriors to spare, so instead he assigned from among the ranks of the Salamanders chaplains an officer of the utmost potential, although perhaps lacking in the centuries of battlefield knowledge possessed by Rhy'tan and some of the older veterans. As crew for the Ebon Drake, he assigned a core of thirty veterans of the Firedrakes, warriors whose steadfast courage and determination would inspire the raw recruits who would make up the bulk of the crew.Of those battalions of Neophytes currently in training on Nocturne, Rhy'tan selected a full company of those most recently promoted to the station of Legiones Astartes, carefully choosing representatives from amongst all the domains of Nocturne and those off-world domains of the XVIIIth Legion, for he believed this mission must represent the will and strength of his entire Legion.
瑞’坦本人不能离开夜曲星，他手下也几乎没有可供调拨出的有经验战士，所以他从火蜥蜴军团牧师中指派了一名最有潜力的军官（担任领袖），尽管后者或许缺乏瑞’坦和更年长的老兵们所具备的数个世纪战场知识。至于乌木火龙号的船员组，瑞’坦指派了三十名火龙老兵组成部队核心——这些战士们坚定的勇气和决心能激励新兵们，而后者将会构成船员的主体。对于那些目前正在夜曲星上受训的新兵战斗营，瑞’坦从那些最新近被提拔到阿斯塔特军团中的成员中，挑选出了一整支连队；他仔细选出的战士们，都是夜曲星上所有领地和第十八军团外星领地的代表，瑞’坦相信这次任务必须代表整个军团的意志和力量。
Xiaphas Jurr, taken as part of the XVIIIth Legion's tithe of the world of Proximal and now named commander of the Ebon Drake, took to his mission with all the fervour of his ancient Proximan forebears, that superstitious breed of Mankind that had once dubbed the XVIIIth Legion the "Devils from the Outer Dark".Seeing in his commission a task as much a matter of deeply held belief in his Primarch as one of strategic significance, Chaplain-Lieutenant Jurr gave his fledgling crew no respite, departing the safe enclave of space around Nocturne immediately and setting a punishing regime of combat drills to prepare those under his command for the unknown. For with the rising tumult that suffused the etheric seas of the Warp, steering a direct course to Isstvan was impossible, a feat beyond the talents of their Navigator. Instead they would be forced to travel by a more circuitous route, translating from the Warp periodically to affirm their bearings and to gather information, and leaving them vulnerable to any as yet unknown foe they might encounter.
夏法斯 朱尔，他曾是Proximal世界提供给第十八军团的十一税的一部分，现在被任命为乌木火龙号的指挥官。他胸怀着继承自Proximal古老先祖们的热情，承担起自己的任务——Proximal世界上那些迷信的人类族群曾将第十八军团称为“自外域黑暗而来的恶魔”。在朱尔这位牧师副官看来，这项任务不仅关乎自己对于原体的深刻信念，而且也具有重要的战略意义，他没有给自己麾下的新手船员们喘息机会，而是马上离开了夜曲星周围的安全飞地，并制定一套惩罚性的战斗演习制度，以让下属们做好应对未知情况的准备。随着弥漫于亚空间以太之海中的骚乱愈演愈烈，引导出一条前往伊斯特万星系的直达航线变得不可能——船上的导航员们无法凭自己的能力做出此等壮举，他们要被迫沿着一条更曲折的航线旅行，定期离开亚空间以确定自身方位并收集信息，这也让他们在自己可能遭遇到的任何未知敌人面前都不堪一击。
The Empty Void
空寂的虚空
Much of the voyage is now lost to us, unrecorded by the crew of the Ebon Drake and impossible to track in the wake of the destruction wrought in the civil war that engulfed the Emperor's domain. However, a comprehensive search of the augur logs of the uncounted millions of navigation beacons and astropathic relay stations that dot the Imperium allows us to trace some of the route of the Ebon Drake, whose long journey led her across paths rarely trod by stellar travellers. Some few encounters are known to us in detail, from ships' logs or information recovered from other sources, while many remain but partial references whose full details may never be known.
现在，我们遗失这次航行的很多内容；乌木火龙号的船员们并未记录这次旅行，而且在经受了那场席卷了帝皇疆土的内战所造成的毁灭后，我们也不可能再去追寻这些信息。但是，我们对遍布于帝国各地的数百万导航灯塔与星语终极站的鸟卜日志进行了综合性搜查，追踪到了乌木火龙号的某些航迹——这趟漫长的旅行是沿着星际旅行者们极少踏足的路线进行的。根据飞船的日志或回收自其他来源的信息，我们得知了飞船经历的几次遭遇战的细节，不过其中很多都只是不完整的参考资料，其完整细节可能永远不会为人所知。
From what information is available it is agreed that the first emergence of the Ebon Drake was at Sulis, where the system lords had barred entry to all vessels in response to the rumours of war and civil strife, and enforced their isolation with a ring of heavily fortified gun platforms. Bearing messages of support from Nocturne and its Keeper, Chaplain-Lieutenant Jurr approached only to be met by insult and weapons fire. Sulis no longer accepted the Emperor as its master and neither would it bow to this new Warmaster. Such secessionist sentiment was far from uncommon during the chaos of the Horus Heresy, but Jurr and the Salamanders of Nocturne had as yet little information on the current state of the galaxy and found such an affront to the spirit of the Great Crusade unbearable.
各种可用材料中的一个共识是：乌木火龙号的第一次遭遇战发生在Sulis星系，此地的领主们禁止所有飞船进入该区域，以应对关于战争和内乱的谣言；他们还将大幅度要塞化的火炮平台环列在周围，强化了这种孤立性。牧师副官朱尔带来了夜曲星及其守护者要求提供支援的信息，但当他接近Sulis星系时，遭遇的只有冒犯和武器开火。Sulis不再接受帝皇的统治，也不屈膝服从于那位新任战帅。在混乱的荷鲁斯叛乱时期，这种分离主义情绪很常见，但对于银河系的当前局势，朱尔和夜曲星上的火蜥蜴战士们几乎一无所知，他们无法忍受这种侮辱大远征精神的行为。
In a three day battle, the Ebon Drake scoured the system of its orbital defence platforms, and harried the wallowing squadrons of interdiction barges. The cumbersome system defence craft, though heavily armed, could not match the Ebon Drake's speed and proved easy prey for her guns and the righteous anger of the boarding parties, led by Chaplain-Lieutenant Jurr. In the climactic battle of the short and bitter campaign, Jurr and his warriors fought their way through the primary orbital bastion above Sulis, routing the secessionist Solar Auxilia regiment set as sentinels aboard it.The vengeful Salamanders crippled the complex gravity engine that held the bastion transfixed in orbit and left the station to descend in fiery destruction upon the golden palace-city of the system lords. When the Ebon Drake withdrew from the system, she left behind a world that could offer no threat to the Imperium, little knowing that this would later see it fall without a struggle into the hands of the Warmaster.
经过三天的战斗，乌木火龙号肃清了星系中的轨道防御平台，不断袭击拦截舰中队。那些大而笨重的星系防御船虽然装甲厚重，却无法在速度上匹敌乌木火龙号，而且在舰炮和牧师副官朱尔率领的跳帮队的义愤面前，它们也被证明是易于捕杀的猎物。这这场短暂且苦涩战役的高潮，朱尔和他的战士们在Sulis上空的主轨道要塞中杀出一条血路，击溃了充当要塞哨兵的分离主义者太阳军（步兵）团。满怀复仇怒火的火蜥蜴们严重损毁了将要塞固定在轨道上的复杂重力引擎，这座空间站在熊熊烈火中坠落，砸在了星系领主们那金色宫城上，将之摧毁。当乌木火龙号撤出星系时，她身后留下了一个不能再威胁到人类帝国的世界。但火蜥蜴们几乎不知道的是，Sulis之后将会不做任何挣扎便落入战帅手中。
After Sulis, the information used to chart the movements of the Ebon Drake becomes more unreliable. Fragmentary log entries recovered from the wreck of the Ebon Drake, discovered years later during the Scouring, mention the unexplained disappearance of three Legiones Astartes crewman at the 'Oasis of Nightmares' and a violent encounter with an unknown xenos craft of crystalline composition that left the Ebon Drake adrift for several days without power, but provide few concrete details. Likewise, the annals of the portmaster of Valthrudnir, a newly Compliant world near the galactic core, mention the sighting of "a craft marked with the sigil of a great black dragon crewed by void-devils" ,yet such sightings can rarely be directly tied to the Ebon Drake.
在离开Sulis之后，用于追踪乌木火龙号动向的信息变得更加不可靠。我们从乌木火龙号残骸（其被发现于数年后的大肃清时期）中回收了碎片化日志条目，其中提到了三名阿斯塔特军团战士船员在“噩梦绿洲”处无法解释的消失，以及飞船与某艘水晶质地的未知异形舰船的激烈遭遇战——这导致乌木火龙号在无动力状态下漂浮了数天，但并未提供多少具体细节。同样的，在Valthrudnir（这个新规顺的世界靠近银心地区）港口主管的年报中提到，自己见到了“一艘带有巨大黑龙纹章的舰船，由虚空恶魔船员们操纵着”，但此项目击事件几乎不能与乌木火龙号直接联系起来。
Of these varied partial accounts, perhaps the most interesting is from the chronicles of the IVth Legion, the Iron Warriors. The grand cruiser Grim Paragon, one of several craft left as sentinels over Olympar,was heavily damaged after an encounter with a vessel of unidentified class bearing the markings of the Salamanders that approached Olympia seeking word of the battle at Isstvan.
在各种各样的不完整报告中，最令人感兴趣的或许来自第四军团“钢铁勇士”的编年史。留在奥林匹亚世界上空，负责进行哨戒的飞船之一：“冷酷完人”号在遭遇到某艘带有火蜥蜴标志的未确定型号飞船后，收到了严重损伤；后者当时接近奥林匹亚世界，试图询问关于伊斯特万星系中战争的信息。
At Anvilus, mighty bastion of the Mechanicum and foremost of the Great Crusade's storehouses of arms and armour, they found that the embers of discontent had burst into open civil war between factions of the Machine God’s followers. Where the Ebon Drake came searching for resupply and repairs, they found only strife and war, the tech-adepts of that most mighty forgefane having bent all of their arcane skills to the utter annihilation of their brethren, with little care for the fate of unfortunate bystanders. For those uninitiated into the mysteries of the Machine Cult, it was impossible to divine where either side stood in the wider galactic war, or to easily communicate their own affiliation, and the Ebon Drake quickly became a target for both factions.
在机械神教的强大要塞，兼大远征最重要的武器和装甲（载具）储存地——铸造世界安维鲁斯处，火蜥蜴们发现万机神信徒派系们之间的（彼此）不满已经爆发为了公开内战。乌木火龙号原本是前来寻求补给和维修的，却只发现了纷争和战火，来自那些强大科技神殿中的技术教士们施展出自己的所有玄奥技艺，只为彻底毁灭自己的兄弟们。他们几乎毫不关心那些不幸旁观者们的命运。对那些不了解机械教派秘密的人们而言，要猜测出双方在那场更大范围银河战争中的立场是不可能的，也不可能轻易传达出自己的隶属关系。乌木火龙号很快就成为了两方派系的目标。
Narrowly avoiding becoming embroiled in the titanic void duels between seemingly identical forces of Mechanicum siege-monitors; the vessel was bombarded by vox broadcasts of incoherent machine code, some interrogative missives from interchangeable steel-faced magos and others insidious codedjinn intended to subvert the systems of the Ebon Drake, leaving her helpless. Were it not for the unique engineering of the prototype vessel, such an assault would surely have succeeded; instead it merely served to cause confusion aboard the Ebon Drake as several non-essential systems suffered cascade failures. Diverting all available power to the Ebon Drake's over-sized drive core, Chaplain-Lieutenant Jurr set upon a course out-system, evading plasma carronade barrages from the Mechanicum monitors while his warriors fought to cleanse the vessel of the frenzied murder-servitors which had boarded the Ebon Drake during her momentary incapacitation.
参战双方都派出机械神教攻城监测船，组成看似相同的舰队，进行了一场规模庞然的虚空对决，乌木火龙号侥幸未被卷入其中；飞船遭受了不连贯机械代码的音频广播轰炸，并收到了具有可交替钢铁面容的贤者们发送的某些质询信件，还有其他意图策反飞船系统的鬼灵代码，乌木火龙号陷入了绝望。倘若不是原型舰独特的工程（构造），这样的袭击肯定会得逞；但这一切只是让飞船的多个非必要系统发生了级联故障，在乌木火龙号上造成了困惑。牧师副官朱尔（下令）将全部可用动力转移到飞船的特大号驱动核心中，他设定了一条离开安维鲁斯星系的航线，躲开了机械神教监测船的电浆臼炮密集轰击；同时朱尔麾下的战士们也一路奋战，从船上清理掉了疯狂残暴的杀戮机仆们——它们是在乌木火龙号暂时失去行动能力时进行了跳帮。
By the time the Ebon Drake had reached a safe distance, where the translation back to the dubious safety of warp space could be attempted, she had sustained serious damage to her outer hull as well as to numerous internal systems. Worse still, the casualties sustained in this, the latest of many battles the ship's company had faced, left them dangerously short on uninjured warriors. Without refit and an influx of new fighters, the Ebon Drake would have little hope of completing her mission.
等到乌木火龙号拉开了安全距离，可以尝试进入安全性不定的亚空间时，她的外侧船体和许多内部系统都已经遭受了严重损伤。更糟糕的是，船员也出现了伤亡，船上的星际战士连队最近经历了诸多战斗，毫无创伤的战士数量少到可怜。倘若得不到修整，也不补充新的战斗人员，乌木火龙号完成任务的希望就是渺茫的。
For the Sake of the Dead
看在逝者的份上
The next verifiable data on the Ebon Drake places her at Baal, the throneworld of the Blood Angels. The sons of Sanguinius had not been included in the fleet sent to seek redress from Horus after he was declared a traitor to the Imperium; in fact the majority of the IXth Legion had been marshalled and dispatched to Signus Prime on the far rim of the galaxy some years before on the orders of Horus himself. Their own Primarch, Sanguinius, would himself be counted among the missing until his fate was revealed in the later years of the Horus Heresy. All that remained to greet Xiaphas Jurr on Baal was a small garrison of the IXth Legion, under the command of the veteran Legionary Warden Arkhad.
乌木火龙号上的下一份可验证数据表明，其抵达了圣血天使军团的王座世界——巴尔。在荷鲁斯被宣判为帝国的叛徒后，圣吉列斯并未被派去加入惩戒舰队；事实上，早在数年之前，荷鲁斯便亲自命令第九军团的大部进行集结，并将之派往位于银河系遥远边缘处的西格纳斯主星。至于圣血天使的原体圣吉列斯，直到其命运在荷鲁斯叛乱后期被揭示之前，他一直被算入失踪人员。巴尔上还能接待夏法斯 朱尔的就只剩一支小规模驻军，担任监理者的军团老兵阿尔卡德是其指挥官。
The Ebon Drake limped into orbit around the fortress world of the IXth Legion, where her crew were able to secure space at an orbital dock for desperately needed repair and resupply. Playing host to a multitude of battered Imperial companies falling back from battlefields along the northern edge of the Imperium, Baal did not feel abandoned as did their own home world of Nocturne, yet even bustling with activity and a veritable host of Legiones Astartes from different Legions, it carried the same despondent air.
乌木火龙号缓慢驶入了第九军团要塞世界的轨道，船员们得以在轨道船坞中获取急需的维修和补给。巴尔接纳了大量遭受重创帝国（阿斯塔特）连队，后者都是撤退自帝国北部边境各处的战场，这个世界上并没有火蜥蜴故乡夜曲星上的那种被遗弃感。然而，尽管巴尔上因（各种）活动事项而熙熙攘攘，而且来自不同军团的阿斯塔特们也组成了一支名副其实的大军，但此地弥漫着同样的沮丧气氛。
Baal granted Xiaphas Jurr his first chance to glean some hint of the tragedy at Isstvan, but even those few who had survived that battle could offer him little but fragmented and vague recollections. None could speak of the final fate of any of the fallen Primarchs, and many mourned their gene-fathers as lost, with no few surrogate tombs under construction at Baal in honour of those broken souls surrendered to the ranks of the dead.
也是在巴尔上，夏法斯 朱尔第一次有机会获取到关于伊斯特万惨剧的某些信息，但即便是那场战斗的极少数幸存者，也只能提供一些零碎的模糊回忆。没人能说出任何倒下的原体的最终命运，很多人都在默哀自己“逝去”的基因生父。巴尔上建造起了众多衣冠冢，用于纪念那些逝去的破碎灵魂。
Some few of their own brethren the company of the Ebon Drake found within the fortresses ofBaal, readying themselves to stand alongside the Blood Angels should Horus dare to strike at Sanguinius' homeworld. Chief among them Praetor Captain Kar'Tor, once numbered amongst the most valiant of Nocturne's sons and heir- designate to the Protectorate of Themis, City of Warlords, a warrior for whom Xiaphas Jurr held an abiding respect. However, the horrors of the battle at Isstvan V had left Kar'Tor broken of spirit, and when Chaplain-Lieutenant Jurr petitioned for able-bodied Salamanders to join the crew of the Ebon Drake in her mission, Kar'Tor grew wroth, forbidding any from joining the ship.
在巴尔的要塞中，乌木火龙号上的船员连队发现少量的自家兄弟，后者准备与圣血天使们并肩作战——倘若荷鲁斯胆敢进攻圣吉列斯的故园母星的话。火蜥蜴残军们的领袖是执政官卡’托尔，他曾是最英勇的夜曲星子嗣之一，而且被指定为战将之城瑟米斯的下一任护城官，夏法斯 朱尔向来尊敬这位战士。然而，伊斯特万五号战斗中的恐怖场景令卡’托尔精神崩坏，当牧师副官朱尔恳请体格健全的火蜥蜴们登上乌木火龙号，共同执行任务时，卡’托尔勃然大怒，禁止任何人加入船员组。
Despite Kar'Tor's rash orders and the grim sense of doom that had enveloped many of those now preparing to meet their end at Baal, thirty-eight Salamanders joined the Ebon Drake's crew, a group that had escaped Isstvan V aboard the Thunderhawk Ohidoran. These warriors of Nocturne brought with them seventeen battered but unbroken Raven Guard, led by a Legionary named Kirhane whose fresh wounds were evidence of the fury he had witnessed at Isstvan, and a trio of hulking Iron Hands cataphractii, all sworn to rejoin their own missing lords or die in the attempt.
不过，仍有三十八名火蜥蜴战士无视了卡’托尔鲁莽（下达）的命令，忽略了笼罩在众多准备在巴尔上迎来终局的人们身上的残酷末日感，加入了乌木火龙号的船员团队；这群战士搭乘着雷鹰炮艇“奥西德兰”号逃离了伊斯特万五号。和夜曲星战士们一起登舰的还有十七名暗鸦守卫战士，他们饱经磨难但仍旧坚韧不屈，由一位名叫基尔哈恩的军团战士率领着——这位战士在伊斯特万星目睹了（战争的）怒火，他身上新添的伤疤便是明证；还有三位身穿铁骑终结者动力甲的钢铁之手也一并登舰，他们全都发誓要重新加入自己失踪领主们的麾下，或者就在尝试的过程中成仁。
Kar'Tor was not to be the only obstacle to their quest; Warden Arkhad, the Seneschal of Baal, while happy to welcome the Ebon Drake and her company to his world, was less keen to see a fully armed Legiones Astartes cruiser abandon its defences for what he saw as a suicide mission. Unwilling to acknowledge the importance of jurr's mission or the validity of his orders, it was only the threat of the Ebon Drake's bombardment cannon turned on his defences that eventually persuaded Warden Arkhad to allow them to pass through the orbital defence grid. "For the sake of the dead you have damned all those who now stand in the Emperor's name. Do not return to Baal; for you stand no less as traitors than those who now march under Horus' banner," were Arkhad's bitter parting words as the Ebon Drake left orbit of Baal. Silent in the face of Arkhad's denouncement, the crew of the Ebon Drake pondered the truth of his words as they translated once more into the Warp, passing ever closer to Isstvan, to the heart of the treachery that had befallen the Imperium and the final truth of their Primarch's fate.
不过，卡’托尔并非是乌木火龙号追寻军团命运的唯一障碍；巴尔的总管——监理者阿尔卡德欢迎乌木火龙号与船员连队来到自己的世界，但他不太愿意看到一艘全副武装的阿斯塔特军团巡洋舰放弃（协助）保卫巴尔，转而去执行某项在他看来纯属自杀的任务。朱尔不愿将肩上任务的重要性告知阿尔卡德，也不承认对方命令的有效性；乌木火龙号将轰击炮对准了巴尔，这才最终说服监理者阿尔卡德放他们穿过了轨道防御系统网络。“看在死者的份上，（我就放过你们，）你们这是诅咒了所有以帝皇之名坚守阵线之人。别回巴尔；你们就和那些顶着荷鲁斯大旗前进的人一样，都是叛徒”，当乌木火龙号离开巴尔轨道时，监理者阿尔卡德送出了这份苦涩的临别赠言。当乌木火龙号再次进入亚空间时，船员们一言不发地读着阿尔卡德的谴责，思索这番话语的真实性。飞船距离伊斯特万星系越来越久，船员们就要进入降临在人类帝国的这场叛乱事件的中心，找出关于原体命运的最终真相。
