【战锤40k同人作品翻译】Ennui 第二十一章：绝望 Desperate

本章概述：

            伊莎莱接受死亡。

            In which Isarae submits to death.

 

正文：

这不公平。

我知道，这么想很幼稚。以我这个年龄，见证了如此多的不公并亲手犯下了其中的大部分，却又觉得生活对我来说是如此的不公平，这真的很幼稚。

又或者不是。

我稍微打开了喷气摩托的节流阀，并开始以低功率扫描与亚历莎的动力甲核心发出的信号相符的特征，与此同时，一股苦涩的灰烬逐渐积压在了我的胸中。我能做的不过是在城里四处游荡并搜索，可也许那也是一种幸运。

在与亚历莎的交谈之后……或是说争执？我们刚刚发生了争执吗？我觉得某种程度上确实如此，尽管如此我知道自己现在无法面对她。我太过生气，太过愤恨，虽说这么想还是很幼稚，可说真的……

我有的选吗？

生于科摩罗。

长于科摩罗。

我本还能成为别的什么吗？

诱使我进入巫灵教派的是出于必要而非自愿，不过我也不能说自己是被囚禁在那里，不是吗？说到底，我心甘情愿地追求杀戮的艺术以此声名鹊起，屠戮了竞争者以踏着尸堆爬上统领魅魔的浮夸地位。

我的头发在巢都潮湿的风中像一面猩红色的旗帜一样在我身边拍打着，我隐约地意识到自己应该稍加小心，可真的，我不在乎。我的喷气摩托上的匿踪技术确保我只要不超出基本推力就永远不会被探测到，哪怕是阿苏焉信徒的探测器也一样，我也毫无疑问地可以在看到兽人前就听见他们。

至于人类？我正主动搜索着他们呢。

搜寻着亚历莎的人，以便我能把她还给他们。

这样的想法令我心如刀绞。

我好奇如果有的选的话，我会不会做出别的选择。我一直以来都没得选，在某种程度上，缺少可选项是我们这个种族的宿命。

没有一个黑暗精灵或阿苏焉信徒在他们的生命中有可能有过一个真正意义上的可选项。我们生来就是个垂死的种族，继承了受污染的遗产，也是一个支离破碎的帝国的后代。黑暗灵族必须取悦饥渴者，不然就会被一个亚空间神祇吞噬，而阿苏焉之子嗣必须在清醒时的每分每秒都压制住自己的灵魂，不然也会遭受相同的灾厄。

魂石确保了阿苏焉之子嗣的安全，而我的黑暗精灵之饥渴（Druchi Thirst）保护着我的灵魂，但两者皆是牢笼。一个是晶体，一个是血肉，均服务于避免我们的灵魂被消化这个唯一的目的，而那是我们仅有的选择。

我们该如何让自己活下来？

我们为了活下来能犯下怎样的暴行？

我放慢了喷气摩托的速度使之逐渐停了下来，我驻足于此，叹了口气，凝视着脚下城市的开阔鸿沟。

“为了生存，我愿意做什么？”我轻声问道。

我想到了亚历桑德拉。我想起了她的嘴唇，她的味道，她在我的怀抱里的感觉。我想到了她的灵魂的滋味，往我的胸膛中充满纯粹的力量的金色阳光的味道。我想到她在我的身下融化，随着我一遍遍的索取而愈发虚弱，直到几乎变成了一具空壳，为了在我杀死她时仍服从我的需求而被逼疯。

“不是那样的，”我咬着嘴唇重新打开节流阀。“永远不会是那样。”

如果这就是我们的宿命的话，那我乐见自己的死亡。我已经毒害过亚历莎，而我再也不会这么做了。

我无声地飘过巢都的大街小巷，一边贴着墙壁并浮在阳台下面，一边以低功率扫描。我时不时地会听到一阵提示音，但并没有什么切实的存在，所有的都不过像是扫描仪的故障，不过是碰巧短暂地打到特定波长上的能量反射罢了。

“还有多少像她那样的人？”我思考着。“这里还有人类吗？”我对这个想法做了个鬼脸，一部分是因为自己还没遇到过这种情况。

这座巢都无比庞大，不过兽人的Waaagh也一样。很有可能，在我们沉浸在居家生活的幻想中无所事事的这三十多个昼夜里，亚历莎的同类已经输掉了这场战争，并已经要么撤退，要么被消灭干净，要么被兽人奴役。

如果情况真的是这样，那我觉得亚历莎没有回到他们之间就是最好的情况。即便她勇敢而强大，她也只不过是单一的一个战士，如果这场战争只用了三十天就迎来终局，那单独一个士兵也改变不了什么。

她只会和其他人死在一起。

“不，”我喃喃道，为了扩大搜索范围，我冒险稍微调高了喷气摩托上的扫描仪的功率。“人类是很多种东西，但他们没这么容易坏掉……我一定是找错地方了。”

尽管这可能冒更大的风险，我还是更多地打开了喷气摩托的节流阀并超过了高推力的水平，接入了主重力驱动器。我能品味到天气变化的味道，尝到了臭氧和化学污染的雨水的滋味。一场巨大的风暴正在降临，如果我不能尽快找到人类部队的话那就再也找不到了。

如果我的直觉没错，那这场风暴会持续数周，到那时我就会……

好吧，那时我就不适合进行任何类型的搜索了。我得赶快找到他们。

我的沮丧随着时间流逝逐渐增长。我时不时地听到提示音，可什么都没有。这一个信号，那一个标记点，可每次我前去查看都一无所获。我的脑袋也变得昏沉，身体越来越冷……我的思维变得迟钝，我一边咒骂着自己是个愚钝的恶棍一边到达了我为自己标记出来的边缘地带。

什么都没有。

只有传感器故障和被遗忘的尸体。

我咒骂着甩起喷气摩托。我得尽快回到尖塔那里。风暴几乎要到达巢都上空了，冰冷的雨滴已经落了下来。在几个小时内这座饱经战火的城市就会被降雨包围。

“伊莎莱你这可悲的傻子，”我骂骂咧咧地把喷气摩托对准家的方向。“你几天前就该做这件事了，而不是等到以后一刻。”

我又一次打开节流阀并向前倾身，怒火又一次涌上心头，我穿过寒风冷雨，压低姿态进入了我和亚历莎的住所所在的尖塔层。

现在雨下得愈发密集，以前我的生理机能会直接靠发热来补偿，而现在我却瑟瑟发抖。我麻木的手指几乎感觉不到对喷气摩托的控制，随着我试图靠加速来尽快回到安全地带，狂风的呼啸灌满了我的耳朵。

因此，也难怪我在子弹击中散架的发动机外壳并炸毁驱动歧管前没能听到爆弹枪的开火声。

随着局部重力场的剧烈失稳，我周边的物理法则一下子乱了套，我猛地拉起转向杆，喷气摩托剧烈地前后颠簸，试图在剧烈震颤的推进器把我砸进尖塔的外墙前重新取回控制权。

我勉强将载具晃到足够低的高度以试着穿过两栋尖塔之间的一条大道，喷气摩托高亢的尖叫声随即刺进了我的耳膜。

我一边骂出一长串脏话一边跳下车座，在风雨中扭动身体以释放我的动量，但我还是狠狠地撞到了地面上以至挫伤了肌肉和骨骼。我看着喷气摩托旋转着飞出了几米远，然后便被临界的发动机剧烈地引爆在半空中。

我意识到的下一个爆炸声以外的声响则是一阵靴子的踏击，一声声熟悉的，着动力甲的沉重脚步从我的左右逼近。

又一声咒骂紧接着上一句，我以决死冲锋的速度起跑，一路冲进小巷子中寻求庇护，双腿在撞击下火辣辣地疼。

我怎么会没有探测到他们？而我唯一的解释就是我的注意力衰退了。我的敏锐度正在与活力一同流失，我正冻得瑟瑟发抖……而且，他们不是粗鲁的兽人；我身后靴子的踏击声肯定是帝国的纪律条令生效时发出的声音。动力甲的重量表明这并不是普通士兵。

也不是基因强化战士。

那它在这个世界上只意味着一件事……我正在被亚历莎的姐妹们追逐。

于是我拔腿就跑。

我呼吸沉重，四肢僵硬，而且我能听到她们紧追不舍。如果我仍处于巅峰状态的话就不会有这场追逐赛，但我现在太过虚弱，她们最终还是会抓到我。

我继续奔跑着。

至少，我的方向感目前还足够强，我知道只要能到达那座尖塔我就能摆脱她们。历经了这么多天的闲逛我已经对它的内部结构了如指掌，我也自信能在这片残垣断壁中逃脱她们的追捕。

我只需要——

当我正离开一条小巷子时，爆弹枪的轰鸣骤然响起，我猛地弹到一边，求生本能和反应力驱使着我一头钻了出去。

一发爆弹在我的胸口原本所在的石墙上引爆。这一枪瞄得很准，如果被打中的话我就会当场毙命。

更多的枪声随着我在爆炸间舞蹈而四处响起。我的剃刀连枷一次次地飞速摆动，分段的刀片截住，切开，并偏转了零星的火力，直至我到达了发现自己所在的广场中心。

“停火！”

一个浑厚而文雅的声音喊出了这道命令，武器的开火声瞬间安静了下来。与此同时，我才伴着一丝恶心的讽刺感意识到自己在哪。

到处都是死去的兽人，最引人注目的是一座腐烂到几乎只留下了降解产物和自身扭曲的掠夺本能的尸堆。我甚至可以看到下面的广场上的一些图画，上面铺满了凝固的血液。

我已经回到了一切开始的地方。我救下了亚历莎的性命，并籍此无可挽回地改变了自己的人生的地方。

多么相配啊。

“你敢动就得死，异形女巫，”那个声音说道，不时被装甲靴的快速运动打断。

被连续射击扬起的尘土已然落定，与此同时我看清了她们：十几个修女在我面前排成一列，大约两个小队，如果我记得准和亚历莎的对话的话。她们中的每一个都用爆弹枪瞄准了我的身上的不同部位，确保一旦我想做什么就能打出致命一击。

说话的人——一个更为高大，身材结实，穿着华美的动力甲的女性——从其他女人中走了出来。她剃着秃头，只留着一顶金属无檐帽和一条银色的辫子，脸上伤痕累累，饱经风霜，她的双眼截然不同，一只是锐利，澄澈的蓝色眼睛，另一只则是中间闪着逼人的红光的义眼。

“艾达灵族，”她冰冷地对我说。“你的存在是对神圣陛下的侮辱，而你出现于此即是异端行径。”

我没有回答，也没做出动作。相反，我紧盯着她，她也毫无惧意地迎上我的目光。

“我会给你一个效力的机会，”她继续说道。“你们一族是施虐狂，海盗，也是可憎之物，但你们不会单独行动……你剩下的亵渎同类都在哪？”

啊，果然。所以她才下令停火而非继续之前的势头。我本该知道的。

“我不效忠任何组织，”我用哥特语回答道，“也没有称得上同伙的人。”

“说谎者！”其中一个修女诅咒般地吐出这个词，但她的年长姐妹举起一只手示意她停下。

“你族撒谎就如我族呼吸一般，灵族，”她平和地回复道。“我为什么要相信你？”

“我是个被放逐者，”讽刺的是，我说的都是真话。“我被抛弃在这里，而如我所言，我没有同伙……我从一个网道大门逃到这里，如果你想去查看那座大门的话，它在约七公里外与这座城市接壤的群山下。”

已经没有必要再藏着掖着了，而且如果幸运的话，我可能刚好给我的方舟世界表亲狠狠地来上了一下，这让我颇感开心。

修女们对我的坦白互相交换了不信任的眼神。我的坦诚让她们措手不及，一时间我不禁怀疑亚历桑德拉是不是一直是对的，是不是有可能——

“非常好，瞄准吧，姐妹们，”指挥官突然下令。

自然不是。

我握紧剃刀连枷，十几把爆弹枪又一次瞄准了我。

这就会是我的葬身之地。如此确定，我也无从改变，但我可以拉上她们垫背……我也很确定如此。或许不是全部，但也够多。

至少超过一半。

第一轮齐射会错失我，我至少可以确定这一点，从那时起我就能宰掉至少三个，取决于各自的反应速度也许会是四个。下一轮射击可能会带走我，但我会最后一次出手并再杀掉另外两个左右。

那就是六到八个。

当我死掉时，我肯定能把她们中的六到八个送到她们的尸皇身边。

“受死吧，”指挥官下令。“屈服于所有胆敢伸手触碰地球之主的神圣领地的异种之命运吧。”

我忽略了她，扫视着听她号令的修女们。

每个都是年轻女子，大多不比亚历莎年长，有着相同的苍白短发，肤色也都像她那样被阳光亲吻过。她们如此相像，以至于我觉得她们肯定和她来自同一座指挥部。

她们不仅是与亚历莎形似，对她而言也肯定是同志和家人，而且……

我在她们身上看到了她的影子。在她们锐利的目光中，她们年轻的脸庞中，我看到了她。

我的亚历莎。

我做不到。

我伤害不了她们。

如此想着，亚历莎咆哮的脸孔便浮现在我的脑海中。她会找到我的尸体，我可以确定，而与此同时她也会发现我倒在她挚爱的姐妹们支离破碎的尸体间，我完全能在心底想象出她脸上的表情。

痛苦、背叛、悲痛欲绝的表情。

我不会用这种方式伤害她，如果我能做到的话也不能以任何方式。对不起，亚历莎……

这次我不会再回来了。

我轻轻呼出一口气，举起了握着剃刀连枷的双手，再次对上了指挥官的视线。她目光炯炯，眼中充斥着仇恨，我知道她期望着我移动、攻击和杀戮，就像我的同类中的任何一个都会杀死她们一样。

我不会让她称心如意。

我把武器丢到了地上，雨声掩盖住了震耳欲聋的咣当声。

“那我便屈服，”我清楚地说道，低下头来。

另一轮寂静降临了，充满了震惊和意外。我没有抬起头来，我仅仅是在等待。我知道，她们毫无仁慈可言，我也毫不幻想这能让她们回心转意。

但至少以这种方式，我能在死时知道亚历莎还会想起我的脸，并且不会感到被背叛的痛苦。

这样就足够了。

“一个知晓她的地位的灵族，”指挥官的声音只是刚好能让我听到。“的确如此，神皇今日为我们降下了奇迹。”

你就是那个奇迹，伊莎莱。

回忆着小教堂里亚历莎的甜言蜜语，我不禁轻笑起来，随后闭上双眼想念起她来。我记得她在我的怀里熟睡时的触感，那份温暖，坚实而引人爱怜的重量，和她像透过青葱绿叶的阳光般的双眼。我记得她的双唇，和我们分享着我们的第一个也是唯一一个吻时的暖意，和在练习拳击后或是共浴时她与我十指相扣的感触。

“原谅我，”我几乎无声地说出这句话，然后用灵族语说出了最后一句话，我的遗言。

“我爱你，亚历莎。”

“处决她。”

话音刚落，我眼前的世界便陷入了雷鸣电闪。

 

原文：

Unfair.

It’s childish to think that, I know. How childish, to be my age, to have seen such injustice and perpetrated the majority of it, and then to have the thought that life was so infinitely unfair to me.

Or perhaps not.

A sullen ember of bitterness took up residence in my chest as I opened the throttle of the jetbike a little and began a low-power scan looking for signatures that matched the variations given off by Alessa’s power-armour core. All I could do was drift around the city and search, but perhaps that was a blessing.

After the conversation with Alessa… the argument? Was that an argument we had just had? I suppose in a sense, it was, but nevertheless I know I can’t face her right now. I’m too angry, too bitter, and it’s childish to think it but, honestly… 

What choice was I given?

Born in Commorragh.

Raised in Commorragh.

What else could I have been?

I was inducted into the Wych Cults by necessity, not by choice, although I can’t say I was held prisoner there, can I? After all, I willingly pursued the art of killing, rose to prominence, slaughtered my competition, and ascended to the vaunted rank of Succubus via a mound of the dead.

My hair whips around me like a crimson flag in the damp wind of the Hive, and I’m vaguely aware that I ought to be a bit more careful but, honestly, I can’t be bothered. The stealth tech on my jetbike ensures that, so long as I don’t go past basic thrust, I’ll never be detected, even by Asuryani scanners, and I would hear Orks before I saw them, without a doubt.

As for humans? I’m actively scanning for them.

For Alessa’s people, so I can give her back to them.

The thought makes my heart ache.

I wonder if I would have chosen differently, given the option. I’d never had a choice before and, in a way, a lack of choice is my people’s defining facet.

There is not a Druchi or Asuryani that is permitted an honest choice in their lives. We are born a dying people, heirs to a poisoned legacy, and scions of a shattered empire. The Druchii must slake our Thirst or be devoured by a God of the Warp, the Asuryani must spend every waking moment suppressing their own souls or suffer the same.

Spirit Stones keep the Asuryani safe while my Druchi Thirst protects my soul, but both are just cages. One is crystal, the other flesh, and both serve the singular purpose of keeping our souls from being digested, and that>i/> is the only choice we get to make.

How do we keep ourselves alive?

What atrocities are we willing to conscience to survive?

I slowed the jetbike to a crawl, then to a stop as I paused and sighed, staring down the open urban chasm beneath my feet.

“What am I willing to do to survive?” I asked softly.

I think of Alessandra. I think of her lips, and the taste of her, and the feeling of her in my arms. I think of the way her soul tastes, and of that golden sunlight flavor filling my chest with pure power. I think of her melting beneath me, of her body becoming frail and weak as I take and take and take until she’s little more than a husk driven mad by the need to obey me even as I’m killing her.

“Not that,” I bit my lip hard as I opened the throttle again. “Never that.”

If that is the fate of us then I would see myself dead and gladly. I refused to poison Alessa anymore than I already have.

I drifted silently through sections of the Hive city, scanning on low as I hugged the walls and floated beneath balconies. I got a ping now and again, but nothing definitive, and nothing that isn’t likely just a sensory ghost, just a refraction of energy that happens to hit the right wavelength for a brief period.

“How many of her kind are even left?” I wonder. “Are there even humans left here?” I grimace at that thought, partially because it hadn’t occurred to me before.

The Hive city is immense, but so is the Orkish Waaagh. There is every possibility that, in the thirty-plus cycles we had spent idling ourselves away in domestic fantasy, Alessa’s people had lost the war and either retreated or been exterminated or enslaved by the Greenskins.

If that was the case then it was for the best that Alessa had never gone back to them, I suppose. Brave and strong she may be, but she is one warrior and if it truly took only thirty cycles to end the war then one soldier would have made little to no difference.

She would have just died with the rest of them.

“No,” I mutter, taking a risk as I tuned the scanner on the jetbike a little higher to widen the range. “Humans are many things, but they are not so easily broken… I must be looking in the wrong places.”

Although it’s an even greater risk, I open the throttle of the jetbike more and rise above thrust, engaging the main gravity drive. I can taste the weather turning, it tastes of ozone and chemical-tainted rain. A storm is coming, and a big one, and if I don’t find the human forces soon I might not find them at all.

If my instincts were correct then this storm could last weeks, and by that point I would be…

Well, I wouldn’t be fit to conduct any kind of search. I had to find them quickly.

My frustration grew as the hours passed. I got a ping every now and again, but never anything definite. A signal here, a point there, but each time I went to check I found nothing. My head was pounding too, and my whole body was cold… my mind felt sluggish and I cursed myself for a slow-witted wretch as I reached the edge of the perimeter I’d marked out for myself.

Nothing.

Just sensor ghosts and the forgotten dead.

I cursed as I whipped the jetbike around. I had to get back to the spire, and soon. The storm was nearly upon the Hive, and cold droplets were already beginning to fall. In another few hours this wartorn city would be sieged by rainfall.

“Isarae you miserable fool,” I spat as I angled the jetbike back home. “You should have done this cycles ago, not waited til the very last moment.”

Bitter anger welled up in me again as I opened the throttle once more and leaned forward, cutting through the biting wind and icy rain, ducking low to move into the spire strata where mine and Alessa's quarters were located.

The rain comes quickly now and, where once my physiology would have simply burned hotter to compensate, now I start to shiver and shake. I can barely feel the controls of the jetbike in my numb fingers, and my ears are filled with the howling wind as I put on a bit more speed to try and get back to safety quickly.

Little wonder, then, that I did not hear the bark of the bolter before the round struck the stripped down engine casing and blew out the drive manifold.

Physics went haywire around me as the local gravity fields violently convulsed and my jetbike was sent hurtling to and fro as I jerked against the steering column, trying to wrest control before the juddering thrusters could plough me into the wall of a spire.

I barely managed to swing the bike low enough to a thoroughfare that ran between two spires before the high, screaming whine of my bike reached my ears.

Hissing a stream of invectives, I leapt from the saddle, twisting in the wind and rain to bleed out my momentum, but I still struck the ground hard enough to bruise muscle and bone. I watched my bike spiral away several meters before it detonated violently midair as the engine went critical.

The next sound I was conscious of beyond the explosion was booted feet, a familiar, heavy, power-armoured tread approaching from my left and right.

Another curse followed my last and I took off at a dead sprint, my legs burning from the impact as I sought shelter in the narrow alleys.

How had I not detected them? My attention had lapsed, that was the only explanation. My acuity was fading with my vitality, I was cold and shivering… and moreover, these were not graceless Orks; the thunder of the boots behind me was certainly the sound of Imperial discipline at work. The power-armoured weight suggested no ordinary soldiers either.

Nor those genhanced warriors.

Which could mean only one thing on this world… I was being pursued by more of Alessa’s sisterhood.

So I ran.

My breath came in labored heaves and my limbs were leaden, and I could hear them keeping pace with me. If I were still at my peak there would be no contest, but I was too weak, critically so, and they would eventually catch me.

I kept running all the same.

My sense of direction, at least, was still strong, and I knew if I could just get to the spire I could lose them. I knew its halls well after so many cycles spent wandering them, and I was confident I could evade them within the twisting ruin.

I just needed to-

The bark of a bolter split the air and I jerked to the side, survival instinct and reaction driving me as I dove away just as I emerged from an alleyway.

The round detonated against the stonework wall where my chest had been. It had been a well-aimed shot, center mass, and an instant kill had I been struck by it.

More shots chewed up the ground around me as I danced between the explosive rounds. My razorflail flickered out again and again, the segmented blades catching, cutting, and turning aside the sporadic fire until I reached the center of the plaza I had found myself in.

“Cease fire!”

A strong, cultured voice called the order out, and instantly the weapon's fire fell silent. As it did, I realised with a touch of sick irony exactly where I was.

There were dead Orks everywhere, most notably in a small pile that had since rotted down to almost nothing between natural decay and the looting instinct of their own twisted kind. I could even see some of the imagery on the plaza beneath, caked with gore as it was.

I had come back around to the place where it had all begun. The place where I had saved Alessa’s life and, in doing so, irrevocably changed my own.

How very fitting.

“Move and you die, xenos witch,” the voice said, and it was punctuated by the rapid motion of armoured boots.

The dust that had been thrown up in the fusillade was settled now, and as it did I saw them: A dozen sisters forming up before me, about two squads if the memory of my conversations with Alessa were accurate. Each one of them had her bolter trained on a different part of my body, all but guaranteeing a kill shot if I tried anything.

The speaker, a taller, robust woman in ornate power armour, stepped forward from between the women. Her head was bald but for a metal skullcap and a single silver braid, and her face was lined with scars and experience, and her eyes were dichotomous, with one being a sharp, clear blue, while the other was an augmetic with a pinprick of red light at its center.

“Eldar,” she addressed me coldly. “Your existence is an affront to His Divine Majesty, and your presence here, a heresy by definition.”

I did not reply, nor did I move. Instead, I kept my eyes on hers as she met my gaze without fear.

“I shall give you one opportunity to serve,” she continued. “Your kind are piratical sadists and abominations, but you do not operate alone… where is the rest of your poison brood?”

Ah, of course. That was why she had ordered the ceasefire and not continued her momentum. I ought to have known.

“I have no allegiance,” I replied in gothic, “nor allies to speak of.”

“Liar!” One of the sisters spat the word like a curse, but the elder sister held up a staying hand.

“Your kind lie as my kind breathe, Eldar,” she replied in kind. “Why should I believe you?”

“I am an outcaste,” I said in all truth, ironically. “I am abandoned here and, as I said, I have no allegiance… I fled here through a webway portal that is located some seven kilometers under the mountains that border this city if you wish to examine it.”

There was no need to hide it anymore, and if I were quite lucky I might just have given my Craftworld cousins a sharp poke in the eye before my inevitable demise, which amused me.

The sisters shared disbelieving looks at my confession. My frankness had caught them off guard, and for a moment I caught myself wondering if Alessandra might have been right, and if it might be possible to-

“Very well, take aim, sisters,” the commander said sharply.

Naturally, not.

I tightened my grip on my razorflail as a dozen bolters sharpened their aim onto me once more.

This was where I would die. That much was certain and I could not change it, but I could take them with me… that much I was also sure of. Perhaps not all of them, but enough.

Better than half, at least.

This first fusillade would miss me, I could ensure that, at least, and from there I could slaughter at least three, maybe four depending on individual reflexes. The next barrage might take me, but I would strike out one last time and slay another pair or so.

Six to eight, then.

In my death, I would be certain of sending six to eight of them to the side of their corpse god.

“Submit to death,” the leader commanded. “Submit to the fate of all xenobreed who dare lay a single twisted limb upon the holy demesne of Him On Earth.”

I ignored her as I looked over the sisters under her command.

Each young woman, most no older than Alessa, had the same pale white hair, cut short and bobbed, and their skin was sun-kissed like hers. They were so similar that I thought they must be part of her commandery.

These were not just similar to Alessa, they were most certainly comrades and family to her as well, and…

…and I saw her in them. In their sharp eyes, and their youthful faces, I saw her.

My Alessa.

I could not do it.

I could not bring them harm.

The thought of it brought the image of Alessa’s face roaring to the forefront of my mind. She would find my body, of that I am also certain, and when she did she would find me dead amidst the shattered corpses of her beloved sisters, and I could perfectly envision the look on her face in my mind's eye.

The look of pain and betrayal and grief.

It was not in me to harm her in that manner, nor in any manner if I could help it. I am so sorry, Alessa…

I’m not coming back this time.

Letting out a quiet breath, I raised both hands gripping my razorflail and met the commander’s eyes again. They were sharp and hateful, and I knew she expected me to move, to attack, and to kill as any other of my kind would kill them.

I would not give her that satisfaction.

I dropped my weapon to the ground with a deafening clatter, the sound muffled only by the rain.

“I so submit,” I said clearly, and bowed my head.

A new silence descended, one of shock and surprise. I did not raise my head, I merely waited. They did not have mercy in them, I knew that, and I had no illusions that this would change their minds.

But at least this way I could die knowing that Alessa would still be able to recall my face without the pain of betrayal cutting into her.

That would have to be enough.

“An Eldar who knows her place,” the commander said just loudly enough for me to hear clearly. “Truly, the God-Emperor graces us with miracles this day.”

You are the miracle, Isarae.

I chuckled softly as I recalled Alessa’s fond words in the chapel, then closed my eyes and thought of her. I thought of how she felt in my arms as she slept, and of that warm, solid, lovely weight, and of her eyes like the sun shining through maiden forest leaves. I thought of her lips, and the warmth of them when we shared our first and only kiss, and of how her hand filled mine just right when we would sit together after sparring or in the bath.

“Forgive me,” I whispered the words near-silently, and I said the last words, my last words, in Aeldari.

“I love you, Alessa.”

“Execute her.”

The words came out, and on their heels my world turned to thunder.