HH5节译：考斯余烬

In every account of the war on Calth, there is little dispute over the overwhelming tactical advantage held by the Word Bearers in the early stages of the fighting. They had complete control of orbital space, with the Ultramarines void craft scattered and broken and the overwhelming firepower of the orbital defence platforms under their control. On the ground, the Word Bearers chapters held all major strategic objectives and had inflicted devastating casualties upon the Ultramarines, leaving the XIIIth Legion with few means to even organise a cohesive campaign against the Word Bearers, let alone prosecute such an offensive.

在所有关于考斯之战的报告中，有一点几乎是毫无争议的：怀言者军团在战斗早期阶段保有压倒性的优势。他们完全控制了太空轨道，而且在极限战士虚空舰船（舰队）四分五裂、支离破碎的情况下，他们还完全控制了轨道防御平台的压倒性火力。在地面上，怀言者战团们控制了所有主要战略项目，并对极限战士造成了毁灭性的伤亡，这让第十三军团几乎无法组织起对于怀言者的整体性战役，更不要说持续进行这种攻势。

The fighting around the southern city of Ithraca stands as an exemplar of the bloody, one-sided and yet curiously inept battles the Word Bearers fought across the face of Calth in the brief surface war. What initially appears as a strategically sound assault on an objective held by unsuspecting units of the XIIIth Legion, quickly degenerated into a confused massacre, only complicated by the inexplicable tactics employed by the Word Bearers and those auxiliary units which had long served under their direction. In many cases, the Word Bearers seem to have abandoned all military logic and sought simply to kill and destroy without recourse to any other concern.

怀言者军团在考斯的地表进行了一场血腥、一边倒而且奇怪地缺乏技巧的短暂地面战，围绕考斯南部的城市Ithraca所展开的战斗就是这样的一个案例。这次行动一开始看起来是怀言者们对第十三军团那些毫无防备的单位所控制项目发动了具有战略合理性的攻击，很快这就变成了一场混乱的大屠杀，而且怀言者军团和那些长期在他们麾下以供差遣的辅助军们采取了令人费解的战术，这只能让情况变得更为复杂。在很多情况中，怀言者们似乎已经抛弃了所有的军事逻辑，只想简单地杀戮和破坏，不关心其他任何问题。

Such was the advantage granted the Word Bearers by treachery that the casualties inflicted upon the Ultramarines were crippling despite the flawed tactics the Word Bearers employed. Regardless, the Ultramarines refused to die, denying the Word Bearers the victory they reached for. Even crippled by the destruction of the orbital vox network, bereft of their command elements and battered in body and mind, Ultramarines detachments across the planet put aside doubt and fear, devised methods to hurt those who had wounded them and put their plans into action with whatever tools of war they could gather to themselves.

这就是怀言者通过背叛所获得的优势，尽管使用了有缺陷的战术，但他们仍对极限战士造成了极其严重的伤亡。但不管怎样，极限战士们都拒绝简单受死，他们阻碍了怀言者夺取想要的胜利。尽管他们被摧毁了轨道通讯网络、失去了指挥，而且身心都饱受煎熬，但全球各地的极限战士分队都把恐惧和怀疑抛在一边，第十三军团的战士们设计出痛击这些伤害他们的叛徒的方法，并且用自己能获取到的所有战争工具来将计划付诸实践。

Convergence of Might

群雄汇聚

Ragged Ultramarines detachments from battlefields across the continent went on the offensive instead of running for shelter as lesser warriors might have done, some as isolated commands and others using short range local vox nets to coordinate with other groups of survivors. Leading the bloodied remnants of a dozen companies of the Ultramarines 9th Chapter, the Tetrarch Tauro Nicodemus cut his way through Word Bearers forces under the command of Foedral Fell. Wielding his tired Legiones Astartes like a rapier, he targeted isolated units as the Word Bearers dispersed to ravage Erud Province. Tetrarch Nicodemus annihilated those Word Bearers commands lost to an unpredictable blood rage while avoiding larger forces and slowly made his way to the north-east, following a fragmentary vox signal broadcast from the remains of the fortified manor of the planetary governor at Leptius Numinus.

身处整个大陆上各个战场中的装备破烂的极限战士分队们都发起了进攻，他们并未像低级的凡人战士那样奔向庇护所。某些分队失去指挥独自作战，其他分队则是使用当地短程通讯网络与其他幸存者团体配合作战。英杰托罗 尼考德穆斯率领着来自极限战士第九战团十二个连队身染鲜血的残军们从菲德拉 费尔指挥的怀言者部队中杀出了一条血路。英杰如同挥舞轻剑一般指挥着疲惫的阿斯塔特军团战士们，趁着怀言者们分散前去蹂躏Erud省的时机，他将那些孤立落单的单位作为了目标。在避开大规模部队的同时，英杰尼考德穆斯也在一场未曾预料到的血战中歼灭了那些失去指挥的怀言者部队。他们向东北部缓慢前进，指引他们的是从从位于Leptius Numinus的行星总督要塞庄园的废墟上传来的支离破碎的声音信号。

In the north, in the scrub deserts around the Holophusikon of Calth, a second Tetrarch, Eikos Lamiad, the Iron Warden of Konor, led a mismatched assembly of Imperial Army soldiers and Ultramarines armoured units in pursuit of the same signals. Tetrarch Lamiad and a retinue composed of Solar Auxilia from the 41st Espandor High Guard, a battered Contemptor pattern Dreadnought and a towering Thanatar siege-automata, scoured the plains for other survivors, while Imperial Army officers organised these stragglers into a column headed towards Lanshear.

在北侧围绕着考斯的霍罗普西孔大博物馆的灌木沙漠中 ，第二位英杰，康诺的钢铁守卫者——艾科斯 拉米亚达率领一支由极限战士装甲部队和帝国军士兵组成的不匹配混合部队，他们也在追寻相同的信号。英杰拉米亚达率领着一支由来自第41艾思潘多至高守卫兵团的太阳辅助军、一台备受蹂躏的蔑视者无畏和一台高大的萨纳塔尔攻城机兵所组成的扈从部队，他们在这片平原上搜寻着其他幸存者，同时太阳军的军官们也将这些掉队者组织成了一支向着Lanshear地区进发的编队。

Even as far south as the vast forests of Sharud Province, where Word Bearers-allied Mechanicum units and Titans of the Legio Suturvora had turned the dense foliage into a hell of flame and ash, units of the XIIIth Legion responded to the call to arms. In a display of tactical coordination few other Legions could have matched, even at their best, the few thousand survivors of the 11th and 12th Chapters of the Ultramarines fought a complex war of hit and fade against fire- blackened automata and blood-hungry Word Bearers units. Ad hoc fire teams defended rough fortifications of earth and fallen trees, while other units hastily prepared the next line of defence, exacting a heavy toll in blood for each position the Word Bearers forced them to abandon.

哪怕是在远至南部Sharud省广阔森林的区域，与怀言者结盟的机械神教部队和火焰之主军团的泰坦们也将茂密的树林化为了烈焰与灰烬的地狱，而第十三军团的单位也提起武器予以还击。他们展现出了即使是最强的军团也无可比拟的战术协调能力，来自极限战士第十一和第十二战团的数千名幸存者对被火焰熏黑的自动机兵和嗜血的怀言者部队发动了一场复杂的游击战。临时组建的火力部队守卫着用泥土和倒下的树木搭建的粗糙防御工事，同时其他部队则匆忙准备下一道防线，在被迫放弃每一块阵地之前，他们都让怀言者们付出了惨重的伤亡代价。

As the fighting wore on, what had begun as a series of isolated and chaotic slaughters slowly began to coalesce. With many Word Bearers detachments disregarding what was once considered standard military practice to engage in inscrutable rituals and wanton butchery, the XIIIth Legion survivors were afforded a momentary respite. For any other than Guilliman's own, such a pause would have meant little; a chance, perhaps, to sell their lives dearly in a glorious but hopeless last stand or futile rage-fuelled assault. For the XIIIth Legion however, it was a chance to grasp victory from defeat. With several task forces of survivors converging on the outskirts of Lanshear, an army that numbered in the thousands and even included a Titan maniple of the Legio Oberon, the Deathbolts, the Loyalists had assembled a response that was capable of achieving more than an honourable death.

随着战斗的进行，一系列孤立而混乱的屠杀开始慢慢地融合起来。许多怀言者分遣队无视曾经经过深思熟虑的标准军事惯例，转而进行神秘仪式和肆意屠杀，第十三军团的幸存者得到了短暂的喘息之机。对于除了吉利曼自己之外的任何人来说，这样的停顿都没有什么意义;这这也许是一个机会，让他们在光荣但无望的最后一搏中以高昂的代价献出自己的生命，或者发动盛怒但却徒劳的攻击。对第十三军团而言，这是一个反败为胜的机会。随着数支幸存者特遣部队集结在Lanshear地区郊外，这是一支数千人之众的部队，甚至还包括了一支来自奥伯龙军团，或者说死亡箭矢军团的泰坦中队。忠诚派组建起了一支反击部队，他们不会仅仅荣耀地战死，而且将会痛击怀言者部队。

Yet while the Word Bearers had sacrificed the strategic initiative, they still held a tenuous advantage in numbers, the initial battles and orbital bombardment having taken a terrible toll on the XIIIth Legion, and unlike the Loyalists, they were not scattered across the surface of the planet and isolated from their commanders. In Lanshear City, Hol Beloth, master of the graven star，commanded a force of almost ten thousand Legiones Astates and uncounted auxila troops, reinforced by several maniples of Legio Suturvora Titans; were the Loyalists to engage such a force head-on, they would have had little hope of a conventional victory. Another target, one of significant strategic value enough to tip the scales of the brutal war unfolding on Calth, would have to be found before the Loyalists would expend their last strength.

尽管怀言者已经丧失了战略主动权，但他们仍然有微弱的数量优势。初期的战斗与轨道轰炸已经对第十三军团造成了严重伤亡，而且怀言者并未像忠诚派们那样分散在星球表面各处并与指挥官失联。在Lanshear城中，不灭铁星战团的战团长——霍尔 贝罗斯指挥着大约一万名阿斯塔特军团战士和无数辅助军部队，而且还有来自火焰之主军团的数个泰坦中队提供增援；如果忠诚派们与这样一支军队正面交锋，那他们几乎毫无取得常规胜利的希望。在耗尽最后的力量之前，忠诚派们必须找到另一个目标，这个目标具有重要的战略价值，重要到足以扭转考斯上残酷战争的局势。

Bitter Victories 

苦涩胜利

Elsewhere on Calths war-torn surface, the fighting knew no pause or ebb in its brutal ferocity. Innumerable battles, both large and small, played out in blasted cities, frozen tundra and burning forests. The entirety of Calth was engulfed in a war that knew nothing of mercy or restraint, and blood was spilled under the bright sun of Veridia as well as the starlit blanket of night. Heroes were born in the crucible of war and perished forgotten and unrecorded by any who yet lived, and the most treacherous of villains met their ends with none to tell of the deed. Even where they emerged momentarily victorious, the warriors of Ultramar could not help but be dismayed by the cost of their triumph before more foes sought them out. 

在考斯被战争摧毁的其他区域上，战斗的残酷烈度毫无减弱，无论它们的规模是大是小，是发生在被炸毁的城市中、冰冻的苔原上还是燃烧的森林里。整个考斯都被卷入了一场不知仁慈和克制为何物的血战，无论是Veridia恒星的朗朗白昼下，还是繁星映照的茫茫黑夜中，都有血腥的恶战在发生。英雄们起于战火之中，死者被现在还活着的人们遗忘，他们也不曾被记录，而最奸诈的恶棍们也死于战争，无人再会讲述他们的劣迹。即使暂时了取得胜利，在更多的敌人找到他们之前，奥特拉玛的战士们也会忍不住为夺取胜利所付出的代价感到沮丧。

Sanachi Province and much of the southern continent were reduced to a charnel house as rampaging entities spawned there from the very depths of the Warp, and few would ever live to speak of the horrific events that took place. The Korvel Islands were engulfed in nuclear fire, their populous cities blasted from orbit at Kor Phaeron's command, perhaps for no better reason than to see them burn. The slaughter fields of Komesh were covered with over twenty thousand dead Ultramarines, their corpses and the bodies of the wounded who still lived used to ornament Word Bearers tanks and aircraft. In Sylator, the war engines of the Legio Cybernetica Magenim, long since having exhausted their stocks of ammunition, sought to stem the hordes of fanatical auxiliaries and deformed Word Bearers shock units with bare manipulator and the strength of their servo-driven limbs, while their masters sought with desperate futility to restore control of Calth's defence systems.

随着从亚空间的最深处产生的疯狂实体冲向此处，Sanachi省和南部大陆的大部分地区都化为了一座停尸场，几乎没有能活着说出发生于此的可怕事件的人。Korvel诸岛上，核火焰在熊熊燃烧着——科尔 法伦命令怀言者部队从轨道上炸毁了人口稠密的城市，也许（想要）看着当地人被烧死就是最好的理由。Komesh屠杀场中遍布了超过两万名死亡的极限战士，怀言者们用第十三军团战士们的尸体和那些依旧存活着的伤者来装饰自己的坦克和载具。在Sylator，马格尼姆智控军团的战争引擎们在很久之前就已经耗尽了自己的弹药储备，他们试图用空无一物的机械手和伺服器驱动的肢体力量来遏制大批狂热的辅助军和变了形的怀言者突击队，同时它们的操纵者在试图恢复对于考斯防御系统的控制，但却徒劳无功。

In the blasted ruins of the manufactoria of Dainhold, the remnants of the Ultramarines 8th and 15th Chapters, reduced to less than 1000 warriors, continued a grim battle against the Flayed Hand Chapter of the Word Bearers. Already worn down by the unending tide of chanting auxiliaries unleashed upon them to drain their munitions, the survivors were little more than desperate bands isolated in the crumbling halls of the manufactoria, and yet they still held after almost a full twelve hours of constant battle. However, measures taken to stymie the screaming hordes of auxiliaries unleashed by the Word Bearers, severing power to lights and heating systems and forcing the merely human auxiliaries to fight in the frozen darkness of Calth's winter night, deterred the power armoured Word Bearers as little they did the remaining Ultramarines.

在Dainhold铸造厂被炸毁的废墟中，极限战士第八和第十五战团的残军现在只剩不到1000名战士，他们与怀言者军团的剥皮之手战团持续进行着一场残酷的战斗。怀言者源源不断地释放出高呼着祷词辅助军部队来消耗极限战士们的弹药，幸存者们因此而精疲力尽、战损严重，他们现在不过是一群孤立困守在坍塌的铸造厂大厅中的绝望战士们，然而，在持续了将近12个小时的战斗之后，他们仍然坚守住了阵地。不过，他们也采取了一些措施来阻止怀言者们释放出的嚎叫着的辅助军们——他们切断了照明和供暖系统的电力，迫使这些仅仅是凡人的辅助军们在考斯冬夜冰冻的黑暗中战斗，这种环境对身穿动力甲的怀言者们而言几乎起不到阻碍作用，但对残存的极限战士来说也是一样的。

With dusk falling over the cities of Enid, half a world away, dawn was arriving over Dainhold's manufactoria, heralding an assault by the elite of the Flayed Hand Chapter of the Word Bearers. Fully two hundred hulking Cataphractii Terminators were unleashed on the exhausted Ultramarines holding out. Trampling a path through the masses of dead and injured auxiliaries who thronged the manufactoria hallways and vestibules, the fresh Word Bearers Terminators tore into the few battered Ultramarines who remained, spending munitions with abandon as they slaughtered the defenders.

随着黄昏降临到了Enid诸城，半个世界之外的Dainhold铸造厂也迎来了黎明，而这一切是以怀言者军团剥皮之手战团精锐部队发动的进攻为标志。怀言者派出整整两百名身形巨大的铁骑终结者去歼灭固守阵地的极限战士们。踩着挤在铸造厂大厅走廊和门厅中大量死亡和受伤的辅助军，终结者们对极少数倍受蹂躏的极限战士残军发动了猛攻，他们肆意开火，屠杀着防御者们。

With almost no ammunition remaining to them, the warriors of the XIIIth had few weapons left that could stop the rampaging Terminators, yet still each warrior strove to inflict as much damage as they could before death overtook them. Improvised pitfalls and hastily converted industrial tools accounted for several of the heavily armoured Word Bearers, and those officers and veterans who bore powered weaponry potent enough to pierce Terminator plate made valiant stands, but ultimately there was little the isolated and exhausted warriors could do. By the time Dainhold was fully engulfed by the changed and suddenly deadly light of Veridia there remained only corpses, mounted on the manufactoria walls as gruesome trophies by the Word Bearers. 

第十三军团战士们的弹药所剩无几，他们几乎没有可以用于阻止这些凶狠残忍的终结者们，然而每个战士仍然努力在死亡来临之前造成尽可能多的伤害。极限战士们用临时拼凑的陷阱和匆忙改装的工业工具解决了几名身披厚重装甲的怀言者战士，那些装备了足以刺穿终结者动力甲的动力武器的军官和老兵们英勇地进行着抵抗，但这群孤立无援且精疲力尽的战士们终究还是做不了什么。当Dainhold地区完全被Veridia恒星那与之前完全不同且突然变得致命的强光所吞没时，此地只剩下了尸体，而且怀言者们将这些残躯作为恐怖的战利品裱挂在了铸造厂的墙壁上。