HH3节译：暗鸦突围（3）
The Fallen Crusader
失落的远征军
The Raven Guard had but days to consolidate after their victory before another Iron Warriors armoured column was reported pressing eastwards across the wastes, winding its way into the twisting ravines of the Illium Rifts. Lord Corax ordered an immediate and overwhelming attack, forging the ire of his warriors into a weapon no Traitor could stand against. The Primarch mustered his assault formations and led his force out into the ravines, his expression making it clear to all he had bloodshed on his mind.
在获胜之后，暗鸦守卫们仅有几天时间来巩固战果。之后，另一支钢铁勇士装甲纵队被报告正在向东穿越废土荒原，进入了Illium裂谷蜿蜒的峡谷。克拉克斯命令暗鸦守卫们进行了一次迅速且压倒性的进攻，他将战士们的怒火锻造为任何叛徒都无法抵挡的武器。原体集结起进攻部队，率领他们进入了峡谷，他脸上的表情清楚地表明他心中的所思所想：他要让叛徒们血流成河。
The battle that ensued took place in the abyssal darkness of the ravines and was as bitterly fought as any boarding action or hive scouring the Legion had ever undertaken. The lead squads of both sides ground into one another as they fought hand-to-hand across a frontage often as narrow as a single warrior. Soon, the deep gorges were choked with the dead and the dying of both sides, forcing Legionaries to step over the writhing forms of their brothers in the effort to engage the foe. The Primarch was ever to be found at the heart of the fight, while the jump pack-equipped units made wide outflanking manoeuvres so that the Iron Warriors were cut off attacked from multiple directions with no hope of retreat. The sons of Perturabo might have been traitors and turncoats, but they fought with all the determination of the Legiones Astartes, made all the more concentrated by the knowledge that they were doomed. The Iron Warriors fought without thought or expectation of quarter, their manner bitter, cold and inexorable, each Legionary having accepted the fact of his death long ago and caring not for the specifics of the time and place of its coming. The Iron Warriors gave not an inch even as their dead choked the gullies.
接下来的战斗是在深不可测的黑暗峡谷中进行的，其惨烈程度与暗鸦守卫军团曾经进行过的任何跳帮行动或巢都扫荡行动都相当。双方领头的小队们都混战作了一团，他们在通常狭窄到仅能让一名战士通过的阵线上短兵相接。很快，高深的峡谷中就堆满了双方部队的死者与垂死者，这迫使军团战士们跨过自己兄弟们扭动着的躯体来试图与敌人交战。人们也在战斗的中心发现了原体的身影，同时装备了喷射背包的单位们进行了大范围的迂回机动包抄。来自多个方向的进攻切断了钢铁勇士们之间的联系，令他们毫无撤退的希望。佩图拉博的子嗣们可能是叛徒和变节者，但他们也是在带着阿斯塔特军团战士的全副决心在进行战斗，而且因为知道自己注定会遭受毁灭，所以他们更加全力以赴。这些钢铁勇士们在战斗时没有过一刻的思虑或期待，他们的战斗手段苦涩、冷酷且势不可挡，所有军团战士们都在很久之前就接受了自己（已经）死亡的事实，也不在乎死亡到来的具体时间地点。哪怕他们的尸体堵住了沟壑，钢铁勇士们也仍旧寸步不让。
At length, the Traitors were reduced to a single mass concentrated into a deep crater, the Raven Guard pressing in from four separate gullies. Though less than a hundred Iron Warriors remained, they were bolstered by the presence of a dozen Dreadnoughts of varying patterns. The Raven Guard slowed their advance, knowing that to press further was to crash against the solid ring of ceramite and steel formed by the towering Iron Warriors Dreadnoughts. Visual recordings from the Raven Guards' visors show that as the tide of battle receded for the first time in hours, the surviving sons of Perturabo mustered in silence while the grim-faced Raven Guard stepped back towards the shadowed gullies. From the Loyalists' midst strode the Raven Lord, his expression unreadable but his void-black eyes fixed upon the nearest of the enemy war engines, an ancient Contemptor class Dreadnought, its power claws encrusted with the dried blood of all those it had slain since the day of betrayal. A single word passed between them, the Primarch speaking the name of the Iron Warriors veteran within the Contemptor, evidence that the two must have fought alongside one another during the Great Crusade. This curse spoken, the two squared off against one another in the manner of pit fighters preparing to fight to the death for some master lusting for blood.
最终，叛军们的人数减少到只剩一群，并且集中到了一个深坑中；暗鸦守卫们从四条独立的沟壑峡谷中向他们逼近。虽然剩余的钢铁勇士仅有不到一百人，但十二台各种型号的无畏机甲强化了他们的武力。暗鸦守卫们减缓了自己的前进（速度），他们明白：如果继续向前挺近，他们就将撞上由高大的钢铁勇士无畏机甲所组成的陶钢与金属材质的坚固防御环。提取自暗鸦守卫战士护面甲的视频记录表明：随着战斗的浪潮在几个小时内第一次消退，幸存的佩图拉博子嗣们无声地集结着，而面容冷峻的暗鸦守卫们退向了阴影笼罩着的沟壑峡谷。渡鸦之主从忠诚派的部队中大步走出，他的表情让人捉摸不透，但他那双虚空般漆黑的眼睛盯着离他最近的敌军战争机器——那是一台古老的蔑视者型无畏机甲，他的动力爪上沾满了自背叛之日以来所有遭其杀戮之人的干血。两者之间仅有一句交谈——原体说出了那名葬入蔑视者无畏的钢铁勇士老兵的姓名，这证明两者一定在大远征时期并肩作战过。当说出了这句诅咒之后，两人相互摆好对决的架势，犹如准备为了嗜血的主人们而战斗至死的深坑斗士们一般。
The visor-recordings which show this battle were barely able to register the speed and violence of what was to happen next; the Primarch leaping high into the air and coming to land atop the Dreadnought's back in a flickering dark blur. Even as the serrated blades of the Contemptor's power claws sought in vain to grapple the Primarch, Corax used one hand to steady himself on an exhaust stack, while plunging the other through the Dreadnought's ceramite armour. In utter silence, the Raven Lord withdrew his arm to hold aloft the armoured brain case and trailing spinal column of the veteran Iron Warriors Legionary who had been interred within the sarcophagus. A moment later, the Contemptor's systems disengaged and the once-mighty war engine collapsed, the Primarch leaping clear before it hit the ground. This was the signal to attack.
为我们展示这场战斗的护面甲录像记录几乎无法记录接下来发生时间的速度和暴力（程度）;原体跃入高空，之后在一片闪烁的模糊阴影中降落在了无畏机甲的背上。就在蔑视者无畏机甲的锯齿状利爪徒劳地想要抓住原体时，科拉克斯用一只手抓紧排气管以稳住自己，同时用另一只手猛然击穿了无畏机甲的陶钢装甲。渡鸦之主全然沉默着，他抽回了胳膊，举起了一副装甲包裹着的脑箱与脱垂着的脊柱——这些东西属于那位被葬于铁棺之内的钢铁勇士老兵。片刻之后，蔑视者无畏的系统停止运行，曾经强大的战争引擎轰然倒地，而在其撞到地面之前，原体便从机甲上跳离。这是进攻的信号。
The Raven Guard leapt from the dark to fall upon the beleaguered Iron Warriors. The two forces crashed together, the Primarch engaging several more Dreadnoughts as his assault squads cut into the enemy Legionaries. Though dozens more Raven Guard warriors gave their lives to defeat the last of the enemy, not a single Iron Warriors Legionary was allowed to escape, and in truth none attempted to do so, each fighting to the bitter end. Eventually, silence descended upon the scene, the rocky floor of the crater carpeted in the broken bodies of over a hundred Iron Warriors and not a small number of Raven Guard. In amongst the wreckage were the ruined, smoking hulks of a dozen Dreadnoughts, the remains of the once-mighty heroes interred within cast to the bloody ground by the vengeful Primarch of the Raven Guard. His contempt for the scope of their fall from grace was writ across his grim visage.
暗鸦守卫们从黑暗中一跃而出，向四面楚歌的钢铁勇士们发起进攻。两支部队碰撞交锋到了一起，在暗鸦守卫的突击小队们切入敌群的同时，原体则在与其他数台无畏机甲交战。尽管有数十名暗鸦守卫战士牺牲在了击败残敌的战斗中，但钢铁勇士们也无人逃脱——事实上他们当中也没有人试图逃生，而是全部战斗到了苦涩的终局。最终，战场上陷入了寂静，坑底遍布岩石的地面上到处都是破碎的尸体：超过一百名钢铁勇士和为数不少的暗鸦守卫死在了这场战斗中。在这些尸体中间，还有十二台无畏机甲冒着烟的残骸，满怀复仇怒火的暗鸦守卫原体掏出了这些埋葬在铁棺中的曾经强大的战士的遗骸，丢在了血淋淋的地面上。他那副严肃的面容上写满了对于叛徒们堕落程度（之深）的蔑视。
With a nod, the Raven Lord gave the order for his force to withdraw, the dead left in their wake a powerful message to the Traitors. It would not be the last of its kind.
暗鸦之主点了点头，向部队下达了撤退的命令，他们丢在身后的尸体给了叛徒们一条强力的信息：这不会是暗鸦守卫们处决的最后一批敌人。
Into the Rifts
进入裂谷
As the shadow play of resistance and search, hard-fought ambush and flight wore on, the presence of increased numbers of Word Bearers within the Illium Rifts made it apparent that the Traitors were pushing their hunt for survivors ever further outwards, once again threatening the safety of the Legions sanctuary. Soon, Raven Guard sentinels spied enemy units guided by baying cyber-mastiffs approaching dangerously close to their sanctuary. Steps were taken to move the Legions wounded, as well as its meagre stores and limited command facilities ever deeper into the mighty chain of caverns deep beneath the rifts.
在伊斯特万五号上，搜捕与抵抗的暗影游戏仍在进行，激烈艰苦的伏击和逃亡也仍在继续。出现在Illium裂谷中的怀言者人数不断增加，这表明叛军们正在前往更外侧的区域寻找幸存者，这一情况再次威胁到了暗鸦守卫军团的安全。不久之后，暗鸦守卫哨兵们就监视到：在咆哮着的智控獒犬的引导下，叛军单位危险地接近了他们的避难所。暗鸦守卫们采取了措施，将军团的伤员以及贫乏的储备物资与有限的指挥设施转移到了位于裂谷地下深处的巨大洞窟链中。
The further the Raven Guard pressed into the stygian darkness, the more apparent the alien nature of the tunnels became. At Length, the Raven Guard took refuge in a vast hall, its floor, walls and vaulted ceiling cast from some ultra-dense compound even the most learned of their Techmarines could not identify. The material itself appeared to have a deadening effect on a wide band of electromagnetic radiation. Furthermore, the construction seemed to be exerting an influence on the psionic level too, serving to nullify or shroud psychic effects. It cannot be determined if this contributed to the Traitors' inability to locate the Loyalists' refuge using technological or psionic means, but many claim it must have done so, for the Traitors scouring the lands above never discovered it using these methods, despite passing within metres of the entrances on several occasions.
随着暗鸦守卫们更深入了避难所幽冥般黑暗的地下空间，这些隧道的怪异特性也就变得愈发明显。暗鸦守卫们最终在一座巨大的廊厅中建立了庇护所，此处的地板、墙壁和拱形天花板都是由一些超高密度的化合物铸造而成，哪怕军团中最为博学的技术军士也无法辨识其材质。这种材料本身似乎对宽频带的电磁辐射有抑制作用。另外，该构造体似乎也对灵能（强度）水平产生影响，以无效化或掩盖灵能效果。我们无法确定这一现象是否导致叛军无法使用技术和灵能手段找到忠诚派的避难所，但很多人声称情况必然是如此：叛军们在上方的地面用技术和灵能手段进行搜索，却从未找到过这间避难所；在很多次情况中，他们离入口仅有数米之遥。
One particular group was not searching using any subtle or esoteric method the alien-constructed refuge might be able to neutralise. The third armoured column of the Iron Warriors was forging eastwards, crushing all it encountered in its ceaseless hunt. The Traitors force was set on a course that would take it directly past a number of the hidden entrances to the refuge, and it was judged a certainty that the Iron Warriors might discover, by dogged search or blind chance, what their fellow Traitors had failed to locate by more subtle means.
不过，也有某支特定的部队没有使用任何巧妙和深奥的手段来寻找这间由异星人建造的避难所——这些手段都会被其无效化。第三支钢铁勇士装甲纵队正在向东挺进，粉碎了他们在这场无休止狩猎中遇到的一切。叛军部队所设定的路线直接穿过避难所的许多隐藏入口，人们断定：通过坚持不懈的搜寻或盲目的偶然发现，钢铁勇士们可能发现了他们的叛军同伙们用更巧妙的手段未能找到的某些线索。
Faced with the likelihood of imminent discovery, the Raven Lord mustered all available warriors and moved silently, but rapidly out into the wastes. The Iron Warriors column consisted of dozens of vehicles of numerous classes, the hulls of its Rhinos, Land Raiders and Predators bristling now with iron spikes, atop which were mounted the grisly trophies of the Traitors' hunt.
面对着即将暴露的可能性，暗鸦之主集结起了所有可用的战士，无声但却迅速地移动进入了废土荒原。钢铁勇士装甲纵队包含诸多型号的数十辆载具，他们的犀牛运输车、兰德掠夺者和掠食者坦克的车体上都被竖起了铁刺，其上钩挂着叛军们猎捕到的可怕战利品。
The Raven Guard committed every available warrior to the assault, sweeping in upon the Traitors with hatred welling in their hearts.The Iron Warriors responded with the implacable ferocity for which they were so well known and the combat devolved into a bitter, gruelling contest from which only one side could emerge. While the Iron Warriors fell back upon ingrained doctrines, the Raven Guard appear to have fallen victim to a lessening in their own, well-known precision and discipline. Some even claim that, in the corpse-choked ravines of Isstvan V, with the sons of Perturabo closing upon their final redoubt, the Raven Guard reverted to a form of war that pre-dated the coming of their Primarch. For a brief moment, it was as if the XIXth Legion of old was resurgent, its long- suppressed bloody-handedness wresting control of its descendents at what might well have proved the moment of their extinction.
暗鸦守卫军团派出了所有可用的战士去参加这场次进攻，他们带着满腔的仇恨冲向了叛军。钢铁勇士们则以他们所著称的无情凶恶加以回应，这场战斗变成了一场痛苦艰难的比赛，而且只有一方能够胜出。在钢铁勇士们回归到自己根深蒂固的信条的同时，暗鸦守卫们则似乎成为了自己众所周知的严谨性与纪律性的受害者。某些人甚至声称：在伊斯特万五号地表堆满尸体的沟壑峡谷中，当佩图拉博的子嗣们逼近他们最后的堡垒时，暗鸦守卫们又回到了与原体重逢之前的战争模式中。在那短暂的一刻，古老的第十九军团似乎复活了；在第十九军团或许会遭到灭绝的哪一时刻，苍白游牧人们长期遭到压制的血腥惯用手段再次控制住了他们的后裔——暗鸦守卫。
But that dark fate was not to be, Lord Corax spurning his warriors at the height of the battle and forging his own path through the carnage, as he is held to have done at times during the bloody years of the Lycaean Uprising. Even as his sons fought on, mired in the blood of friend and foe alike, the Raven Lord plunged into the cauldron of war alone, his black armoured form transformed into a penumbral phantom as his single lightning claw lashed out in great, thirsty sweeps. Fuelled by the power imbued within his every cell by the genius of the Emperor, the Primarch of the Raven Guard was an arc of black lightning grounding itself in the iron-clad bodies of the Traitors, his movements rendered perceivable only by the spray of atomised blood that cast the poisoned air crimson. No being save another Primarch could hope to stand against such a force. The third and final portion of the Iron Warriors Legion left behind to scour Isstvan V of Loyalists was utterly destroyed, and while others of their kin remained in the Urgall Hills manning their fortifications, as a coherent force of aggression the sons of Perturabo were spent.
但这种黑暗的命运并没有发生，科拉克斯在战斗最激烈的时候离开了他的战士，并从大屠杀中闯了出去，就像他在Lycaean起义的血腥年代中所做的那样。就在他的子嗣继续战斗，挣扎于朋友和敌人的鲜血中时，暗鸦之主独自冲进了这场激战，他身穿黑色动力甲的身形化作一团半影黑色的幻影，同时猛烈且嗜血地挥动着自己仅剩的一只闪电爪。在帝皇动用自己的才能为其每一个细胞所注入的力量的驱动下，暗鸦守卫军团的原体成为了一道黑色的闪电弧光，碾碎了叛军们包覆着铁甲的躯体。他的动作快到只能通过叛军们喷溅而的鲜血来被感知，钢铁勇士们的血雾把有毒的空气染成了深红色。除了另一位原体之外，任何人都无望对抗此等力量。钢铁勇士军团留下负责肃清伊斯特万五号的第三支也是最后一支部队被彻底摧毁了。留在Urgall山丘间的其他叛军在守卫着防御工事，而作为一支持续进攻部队的佩图拉博子嗣们已经被消耗掉了。
In the aftermath of the destruction of the third armoured column, the Raven Guard returned to their sanctuary in silence, none willing to speak of the atavism that had risen unbidden within each. Even as the Raven Guard marched wearily back towards their sanctuary, the harrowing-horns of the Traitor Mechanicum's blind-hunters echoed out across the cracked wastes, and black storm clouds gathered in the grey skies overhead. At the last, the clouds broke and black- tainted rain fell upon the blood-crusted surface of Isstvan V
在摧毁第三支钢铁勇士装甲纵队之后，暗鸦守卫们悄无声息地返回了自己的避难所。没人愿意谈论在自己体内自发出现的返祖现象。哪怕是在暗鸦守卫们疲惫地走向自己的避难所时，机械神教叛军所部署的盲眼猎手自动机兵的刺耳号角声也还回荡在破碎的废土荒原上。黑色的风暴云在他们头顶灰色的天空中汇聚；最终，云层破开，黑污的大雨倾盆而下，落在伊斯特万五号糊着一层血壳的地表上。
The Raven Lord Alone
暗鸦之主的独行
The black rains lashing the wastes enforced a temporary cessation in hostilities, the Traitors pulling back from their grim hunt and the Raven Guard taking the opportunity to consolidate in their sanctuary. For several days, the Legion's officers reconstituted and reorganised while the apothecaries tended to wounds long neglected in the midst of constant war. At the height of the rains, Lord Corax once again took his leave of his sons, heading out alone into the rain-blasted gullies without a word of explanation. Those Legionaries who knew their Primarch of old counselled the others to fret not, for it was well within the Raven Lord's demeanour to act alone in such circumstances, utilising his unique Emperor-gifted abilities to pass unseen where few others could.
黑雨猛烈冲刷着废土荒原，迫使双方暂时停止了敌对行动。叛军们从残酷的追捕行动中撤回，暗鸦守卫抓住机会在他们的避难所中进行巩固（修整）。一连数天，军团的军官们都在进行部队恢复和重整，同时药剂师们在治疗那些在不断的战争中被人们长期忽视的伤兵们。在大雨最为猛烈时，克拉克斯再次离开了他的子嗣们，他独自走入了被雨水冲刷着的沟壑峡谷，没有解释自己的动机。那些早就知晓（认识）原体的军团战士们劝慰着其他兄弟，让他们不必感到急躁不安。因为在这种情况下，暗鸦之主独自行动是理所当然的，他会利用帝皇赐给自己的独特能力，在几乎无人能到达地方通过而不被看到。
History does not record where the dark-eyed Primarch walked, nor what grim sights he bore witness to during the day and night he went alone across the wastes. Fragmentary accounts compiled much later based on his conversations with the Primarch Rogal Dorn hint that Corax penetrated deep into Traitor-held territory, perhaps even treading the corpse-carpeted Urgall Depression itself. When at last the Primarch returned, he convened a council of his most trusted senior commanders and while the words that passed between them go unrecorded, the Primarch's intent remains unequivocal. The Raven Guard must survive, he ordained. Not simply to preserve the Imperiums might, although that must surely have been a consideration. Rather, while but a single Raven Guard continued to fight, no Traitor could rest without fear that justice would be visited upon him.
在那独自穿越废土荒原的日夜中，这位双眼漆黑的原体走过了哪些地方，目睹了哪些残酷的景象，历史并未记录下来。很久之后，基于他和原体罗格 多恩之间的交谈（内容），我们编汇出一些零碎的叙述材料，这些内容暗示：克拉克斯深入到了叛军控制的区域，他甚至或许都踏足了尸骸遍地的Urgall洼地。当原体最终返回时，他召集自己最信任的高级指挥官们进行了一次会议，虽然他们之间的交谈内容也并未被记录，但原体的意图仍然很明确。他规定到：暗鸦守卫必须存活下去。这么做不仅仅是为了保存帝国的力量——尽管这肯定是考虑之一，更重要的是：只要还有一名暗鸦守卫军团战士仍在战斗，所有叛徒便都要担心自己会遭到审判。
