第二坟墓 The Second Grave

作者：Jared Rosen

芮尔常常想那些被废的孩子。

Rell thought about the Null often.

她当然也不想折磨自己。但那些念头总是不请自来，而且路途漫长，当她架着铁骑追寻一个又一个传闻时，大多数时间里都无事可做，只有在脑海中回顾那些不开心的过往。连续几个小时的寂静，然后，必定免不了的，杀戮。

She didn’t want to, of course. But the thoughts were intrusive and the road was long, and most of the time there wasn’t much to do besides drift back into those unhappy memories as she rode her shifting metal steed from one rumor to the next. Hours and hours of silence, and then, always, killing.

这一次，她远在诺克萨斯领土的边缘，追随着暗地里的消息，据说又有一个被废魔的孩子正在秘密押出边境。

This time, she was far in the outskirts of Noxian territory, following whispers of another Null child being secreted over the border.

“废魔。”芮尔抽了下脸。咬这个两字会让她牙疼，她默默对自己发誓，摇摇头，甩开这无以疗慰的疼痛。然后这股疼痛变成愤怒。然后愤怒燃起了火。

“Null.” Rell winced. Even the shape of that word hurt, and she silently swore to herself as she braced against nothing, shaking off the weight of it. Then the pain turned to anger. Then the anger turned to rage.

诺克萨斯废了那些孩子——也造就了她。现如今，在他们没有底线的懦弱下，诺克萨斯人甚至不敢直视。他们觉得最好把废了的孩子挪到远远的地方，这样诺克萨斯就能重归辉煌了。

Noxus had made the Null—and made her. And now, in their immeasurable cowardice, the Noxians couldn’t bear to look. Better to take the Null far, far away, so Noxus could go back to being glorious.

芮尔痛恨这个丑恶的国家，痛恨这里愚蠢、丑陋的人。她痛恨一座座露天开矿的山，山里挖出的矿石都被投入勃朗•达克威尔的征伐战中。她痛恨这里开裂、腐朽的土地，用于军粮的农作物耗光了土壤的肥力，随后任由风雨剥蚀。现在唯一遍地生长的只有那种棕绿色的苔藓，覆盖了每一寸无人居住的土地，栖息于此的生物大都是像房子一样大的食肉蜥蜴。

Rell hated this ugly country, filled with its stupid, ugly people. She hated its bleak, strip-mined mountains, their ore gobbled up in Boram Darkwill’s foreign wars. She hated its cracked, rotten soil, used up for ration crops and then left exposed to the wind. Now the only thing that grew anywhere was the green-brown moss that seemed to cake every inch of uninhabited land, populated mostly by carnivorous lizards the size of a house.

真是一片惨不忍睹的淳朴之地，她心想。这里执迷于精英社会，醉心于持续扩张，却不能、也不愿意看到自己已经成了什么样子。黑色玫瑰和他们的试验只是深层顽疾的一个表征。芮尔要把这一切都拆毁——她要解救所有被废的孩子，然后一砖一瓦地毁掉这个帝国，即便只有她自己，也不惧孤单。毕竟她已经把学院拆毁了。

What a hideous, naïve place, she thought. So obsessed with its meritocracies, so consumed by constant expansion, that it could not and would not see what it had already become. The Black Rose and their experiments were just a symptom of its deeper sickness. Rell would tear it all down—she’d save the Null, then destroy the Empire brick by brick, even if she had to do it alone. Just like she’d ripped apart the academy.

随后巨石块砸中了她，有那么片刻，一切都非常安静。

Then the boulder hit her, and for just a moment, everything was quiet.

芮尔认识同学的时间都不长。大多数有潜力的同学都被迫与她对战，因为要进行“比赛展览”，因为要“测试她的实力”。她起初不知道，后来过了很久很久才得知，无论战斗以后他们变成什么样，教员都会把他们赶到一边，用石头模样的夺萃符印抽取他们的魔法，给他们永久废魔。

Rell had not known many of her classmates long. Most of the promising ones had been forced to fight her in “exhibition matches” to “test her strength”. She didn’t realize until much, much later that whatever shape they were in after, the instructors whisked them away, extracting their magic with essence-absorbing, stone-like sigils and leaving them Null forever.

她能记得一些孩子，但其余的只留下拼凑的面孔和极度痛苦的表情，痛苦都与她有关，来自他们之间的战斗、以及长达数小时的印记移植过程，随后他们的力量就给了她。

She remembered some of the kids, but the rest were a pastiche of faces punctuated by extreme pain, from the fights themselves, to the horrific, hours-long sigil grafting process that gave their power to her.

其他学生很快就开始惧怕她——甚至是憎恨她……于是，芮尔从来都孤单一人。

The other students very quickly grew to fear her—hate her, even... and in that way, Rell was always alone.

只有一个伙伴。

All save for one.

加布里埃尔是一个眼神柔和、声音友善的男孩，那些都不是诺克萨斯的产物，而是来自某个遥远的地方，某个芮尔难以想象的地方。他理解芮尔，他还拥有一种奇怪的魔法，可以把尘土塑造成小动物——来自他故乡的飞禽走兽，载歌载舞地为芮尔表演。虽然他离开家人很伤心，但他们二人却在彼此的友谊中找到了慰藉——加布里埃尔曾在许多个夜里安慰饱受学院摧残的芮尔。

Gabriel was a boy whose soft eyes and kind voice were not a product of Noxus, but some other far-flung locale that Rell could only scarcely imagine. He understood Rell and had an odd magic that allowed him to shape dirt into tiny fauna—the animals and birds of his homeland, dancing and playing for Rell’s amusement. Though he seemed sad to be so far from his family, the two found comfort in each other’s friendship—Gabriel spending many of his nights comforting Rell as she recovered from the academy’s abuse.

他们二人在战斗中碰面只是时间问题，虽然芮尔似乎充满希望，但加布里埃尔知道等待自己的是什么。但至少在一段时间里，两个孩子可以假装无事。

It was simply a matter of time before they would face one another in combat, and while Rell seemed hopeful, Gabriel knew what was coming. Yet for a while, at least, the two could pretend.

嘈杂声把芮尔唤醒，一支战团正在小心翼翼地接近她，看她死没死。

Rell awoke to the din of a warband that cautiously approached her, checking if she was dead.

他们不走运，她没死。

Unfortunately for them, she was not.

芮尔站了起来，被打散的铁马金属板也跟着起来了。巨大的长枪来到她手中，炽热的融核原地腾起，组成了怪物般的兵器。她的铁骑重新组合，散发着一千座熔炉的热量。生铁经过扭曲、塑型，自己变成了一匹骏马的轮廓，随后芮尔跳上了马背。

Rell rose with the shattered metal plates of her steed, her titanic lance finding her hand as raw, molten ore poured upward from the ground and into the monstrous weapon. Her mount reformed, pulsating with the heat of a thousand furnaces. Raw iron contorted into shape, seizing itself into the jagged silhouette of a stallion, and Rell leapt upon its back.

她看到有五名对手，其中有一个牛头人，守在一堆巨石块顶端——刚才的石块可能就是从那里来的。另外还有一个人。一个穿着结垢白衣的瘦弱人影，笨手笨脚地奔跑着，试图逃离这片空旷广袤的诺克萨斯荒野。

She counted five opponents, including a minotaur perched on a pile of large, jagged stones—probably the same kind that hit her—and then one more. A thin man in a dusty white coat clumsily tried to escape across the vast nothing of Noxian wilderness.

卢卡斯教员。他是把加布里埃尔带进学院的人，也是把他带走的人。

Instructor Lukas. The man who’d brought Gabriel to the academy, and the man who took him away.

虽然芮尔欣然迎战任何拦路者，但她对自己以前的教员们有一条特殊的规矩：不问，不解释。这一次也不会例外。

Though Rell would fight anyone who stood in her path, she had a special rule for her old instructors: no questions asked, and no answers given. She wouldn’t make an exception for this one.

芮尔的铁马向前猛冲，似乎刚刚逃离一场黑暗、遥远的噩梦。芮尔的长枪就像一个被蔑视的神明降下的铁锤，迎面撞上最前面的士兵。这把兵器不是用来刺穿的，而是用来碾压的。那个士兵惊恐地瞪大双眼，他头脑中留下的最后一样东西，是他的头盔。

Rell’s stallion charged forward as if it had escaped a dark, distant nightmare, and like the hammer of a scorned god, Rell’s lance slammed into the first soldier who stepped in her way. It was a weapon not made for piercing, but for crushing, and as the soldier’s eyes widened in horror, the last thing that went through his mind was his helmet.

第二个战士想要刺伤芮尔的坐骑，但她的长矛却在那冒着热气的铠甲缝间折断，随后芮尔把她远远打飞——一团变了形的废铁掺着血肉落在几丈开外。

A second fighter attempted to impale Rell’s mount, but her spear snapped between its steaming plates, and Rell swatted her far into the distance—a deformed lump of scrap metal and flesh landing several yards away.

两名弩手，现在他们不那么自信了，想要匆忙撤退。芮尔跳到空中，她的铁马组成了一套刀枪不入的黑色铠甲覆盖在她身上，她从天而降落在敌阵之中，脚下的大地在她无边的怒火中裂开了。

Two crossbowmen, now much less confident than before, tried to beat a hasty retreat. Rell leapt into the air, her steed itself forming around her into a thick suit of impenetrable black armor, and she brought herself down upon them as the earth ripped open beneath her boundless rage.

牛头人的投石或许用来偷袭还可以奏效，但即便是这样大块的火山岩，打到芮尔的铠甲上也崩碎了，而她则稳步向他走去。黑铠骑士，来势汹汹，一击就打到了高大的牛头人。

The minotaur’s rocks may have worked in a sortie, but even his great hunks of volcanic stone shattered against Rell’s armor as she slowly marched toward him. A dark knight, utterly unstoppable, who felled the great creature with a single blow.

她的目光看向自己旧识的教员。

She turned her attention to her old instructor.

卢卡斯感受到自己曾经的学生在轻轻拉扯，随后无数块极热的熔渣把他从苔藓和泥土上扯开，随着零碎的残骸在芮尔身边组成一团旋涡。这是一场金属、热火和憎恨的风暴，他临死前只能在慌乱之中低声啜泣着说，“加布里埃尔在营地！”芮尔立刻碾碎了卢卡斯，他残破的身躯深深扎进地里，就算龙蜥来了也别想轻易掘出他的尸体。

Lukas felt the gentle pull of his former student, before chunks of superheated slag ripped him from the mossy dirt and into a whirlwind of jagged debris surrounding Rell. It was a storm of metal, heat, and hatred, and all he could whimper before the end was a panicked “Gabriel’s at the camp!” Rell crushed Lukas instantly, his broken form pounded so deeply into the ground that even the basilisks would have trouble digging out his corpse.

随后风暴停止了，熔渣落下来，一切重归寂静。

Then the storm stopped, the slag fell away, and everything was quiet once more.

教员的遗言果然不假，加布里埃尔被藏在一顶帐篷里，帐篷周围是一处绿草青葱的山涧，在茫茫荒原上印刻的一道纵痕，隐蔽性绝佳的扎营地点。

True to the instructor’s last words, Gabriel was concealed in a tent within a grassy ravine where the ground had given way and created a wide, shallow indentation in the land. The perfect place to hide a camp.

芮尔找到他的时候，他已经死很久了。营养不良。

He was dead long before Rell found him. Malnutrition.

废魔不仅仅是偷走受刑人的魔法——这个过程会毁坏人的灵魂，只留下目光浑浊的躯壳，无欲无求，讷口少言，记忆退化，永远不再做梦。必须给他们少量喂饭，但一些亲玫瑰的战团会选择无视这个任务，只是因为嫌弃。

Nullification didn’t just steal the magic of its intended victim—it sundered their soul apart, leaving a glassy-eyed husk that didn’t want anything, barely spoke, couldn’t remember, and never dreamed. A small handful had to be fed, but some Rose-aligned warbands simply chose to neglect this task out of resentment for the job.

芮尔看着加布里埃尔……看着他被帆布包裹的身躯，回想着在她疼的时候他曾制作出蹦蹦跳跳的小动物逗她笑。她把长枪插进地面，迫使上面的黑色金属从她手中脱离，然后向上，然后将他缠绕，最后把他的尸体完全包裹。一座简单的坟墓，纪念她朋友的离世，虽然简单，但却坚不可摧，上面还点缀了粗糙的动物形体，永远被凝固在钢铁中。

Rell looked at Gabriel... at the form wrapped in canvas who once made tiny animals leap from the ground to make her laugh when she was in pain. Digging her lance into the earth, she forced its dark metal out of her hand, then upward, then around him until his body was covered. A simple grave to mark her friend’s passing, but an indestructible one decorated with crude animals forever frozen in steel.

她闭上双眼，驾着铁马离开，努力回忆着曾经的加布里埃尔，但芮尔看到的只有一条条正在享用死者的龙蜥，随后她的拳头握紧了一个苍白女人的喉咙。

She closed her eyes as she rode off, trying to remember Gabriel as he once was, but all Rell could see were the basilisks feasting on the dead, and her fist closing around a pale woman’s throat.