福影双至 Shadow and Fortune

作者：Graham McNeill

#1

一枚生锈的粗缆针，连着绳索穿过寒鸦门徒的下颚，把他整个人吊在半空，随便码头上的野物们享用。斩屠帮的手段。戴着兜帽的男子已经见怪不怪了——这是他今晚看到的第十七具黑帮尸体

The Butcher Blades had hung the Jackdaw from a rusted marlinspike through his jawbone and left him for the quayside scavengers. This was the seventeenth murdered ganger the hooded man had seen tonight.

对于比尔吉沃特来说，这个夜晚显得格外漫长。

A slow night by Bilgewater's standards.

至少从海盗之王殒命之后，夜里还是比较平静的。成群的码头硕鼠呲着血红的尖牙，已经把尸体的双脚啃得差不多了。它们挤挤挨挨地爬到一旁叠起来的虾笼上，打算抢食小腿上更嫩的肌肉。兜帽男脚下不停，往前走去。

At least since the Corsair King had fallen.

“救……命……”

Red-fanged wharf rats had already eaten most of the hanged man's feet and were perched on stacked kreels to tear at the soft meat of his calves.

从灌满脓血的喉咙里硬挤出来的两个词，湿淋淋地落在地上。兜帽男迅速地转过身，一双手探向挂在宽皮带上的武器。这个寒鸦居然还没死。吊索的另一头穿在粗大的骨钉上，而铁钩帮的人把这些钉子都深深地砸进了吊车的桁架里。要想把这人弄下来，非得把他的脑壳扯成碎片不可。

The hooded man kept on walking.

“救……我……”寒鸦又叫了一声。

“Help. Me.”

兜帽男站定原地，考虑起寒鸦的请求来。

The words were wet, squeezed up through a throat clogged with blood. The hooded man spun, hands reaching towards the weapons slung on his wide belt.

“为什么？”他终于开口问道。“就算我把你弄下来了，你也活不到明天早上。”

Incredibly, the Jackdaw was still alive on the bone-handled spike. The Hooks stuck it deep into the wooden frame of a loading crane. No way to get the Jackdaw down without tearing his skull to splinters.

寒鸦慢慢地举起一只手，伸进自己满是补丁的马甲，从暗袋里摸出来一个金币。即使是在昏暗的夜色里，兜帽男也看出来那是真货。

“Help. Me,” he said again.

他向着寒鸦走近几步，引得硕鼠们一阵骚动，发出嘶嘶的威胁声。它们的个头并不大，但面对如此罕见的美味，它们无论如何也不想放弃。码头硕鼠们挤出刺针状的细长牙齿，带菌的口水啪嗒嗒地溅到地上。

The hooded man paused, considering the Jackdaw's request.

兜帽男把一只老鼠一脚踢进水里，然后又踩死了一只。它们涌上来，没头没脑地乱咬，但完全跟不上他灵活的脚步。他的步法轻巧流畅，而且精确无比，一眨眼又弄死了三只。其余硕鼠仓皇地逃到角落的阴影里，血红的眼睛带着怨毒，在黑暗里闪烁。

“What for?” he said at last. “Even if I get you down from there, you will be dead by morning.”

他终于站在了寒鸦的脚边。他的头脸罩在兜帽底下，几乎看不出任何特征，只有毛乎乎的月光，隐约映出一张与笑意绝缘多年的面孔。

The Jackdaw carefully lifted his hand to a concealed pocket in his patchwork jerkin and removed a golden Kraken. Even in the dim light, the hooded man saw it was genuine.

“不必抗拒，死亡为你前来。如是我言，此时即为终点。”

The scavengers hissed and raised their hackles as he approached. Wharf rats weren't large, but meat as warm as this wasn't a prize to be surrendered lightly. They bared long, needle-like fangs, spitting diseased gobbets of saliva.

他低声说完，从外套内侧摸出一把闪光的银质长钉。长钉上沿着锋刃刻有蜿蜒的图案，长度约为两掌，看上去像是皮匠常用的锥子，只是百倍华丽于彼。他把长钉抵在寒鸦的下颌。

He kicked one rat out over the water. He crushed a second underfoot. They snapped and bit, but nimble footwork kept any from tasting his flesh, his every movement smooth and precise. He killed another three before the rest scattered to the shadows, sullen eyes glaring red in the darkness.

寒鸦的双眼猛地睁大了，双手挣扎地抓着兜帽男的袖子，胡乱拉扯着。兜帽男的目光却投向了广阔的海面。漆黑的水面仿佛一轮阴沉的镜子，影影绰绰地倒映着无数烛光和码头上遍布的火盆。远处悬崖下，成千艘废船的残骸里透出灯笼的点点微光。

The hooded man stood beside the Jackdaw. His features were hidden, but the light of a rogue’s moon suggested a face that no longer smiled.

“你很清楚地平线的尽处潜伏着什么。你也知道它所带来的恐怖多么惊人。而你们仍然像疯狗一样互相啃食对方。我无法理解。”

“Death is here for you,” he said. “Embrace it, safe in the knowledge I will ensure it is final.”

他转过头来，掌心对着长钉的末端轻柔地一拍，尖刺没进寒鸦的下巴，直直钉进了他的脑袋。寒鸦的身子剧烈地耸了一下，然后彻底平静下来。那枚金币从死者的指间滑落，滚进海里，只激起一小朵水花。

He reached into his coat and withdrew a glittering spike of silver. Two handspans long and engraved with curling symbols spiraling along its length, it resembled an ornate, leather-worker's awl. He placed the tip under the dying man's chin.

他拔出长钉，在寒鸦破烂的外衣上擦净了血污，然后收进外套的内鞘里。接着，他又抽出一枚金针和一截银线，后者曾用艾欧尼亚的泉水浸泡过。

The man's eyes widened and his hand scrabbled at the hooded man's sleeve as he looked out over the vast expanse of ocean. The sea was a black mirror shimmering with the glow of myriad candles, quayside braziers and lamplight warped through salvaged glass from a thousand cliffside-hulks.

这道工序他已经反复过无数次：他娴熟地运起针线，将死者的眼皮和双唇仔细地缝好。他一边摆弄着手上的活计，一边呢喃着念出上辈子便传授予他的咒语——最初是由一个身死多年的国王所发出的诅咒。

“You know what lurks over the horizon,” he said. “You know the horror it brings. And yet you tear at each other like rabid beasts. It makes no sense to me.”

“现在，你便不会被亡灵侵扰了。”他缝下最后一针，轻声说道，然后将针线收进了衣袋。

He turned and hammered the heel of his palm against the flattened haft of the awl, driving the spike up into the man's brain. A last corpse rattle and the Jackdaw's pain ended. The gold coin fell from the dead man's fingers and rolled into the ocean with a soft splash.

“有可能，但我们可不想白走一趟，绝对没门儿。”兜帽男身后传来说话声。

The man withdrew the spike and wiped it clean on the Jackdaw's ragged shirt. He returned it to the sheath inside his coat and removed a golden needle and a length of silver thread dipped in waters drawn from an Ionian spring.

他转过身，把兜帽掀到脑后，露出了一张深红褐色的脸庞。他瘦削的下巴如同刀劈般挺刮，显出一股高贵的气质。头顶的黑发扎成一把贴着头皮的束辫。一双眼睛似乎见识过常人无法想象的恐怖，不动声色地审视着来人。

Working with the skill of one who had performed this service many times before, he sewed the man's eyes and lips shut. As he worked, he spoke words taught to him a lifetime ago, words first ill-spoken by a long dead king.

六个壮汉，身上挂着浸透鲜血的皮围裙，荆棘刺青的双臂裸露在外，暴突着紧绷的肌肉。他们每个人手里都提着一把带齿的肉钩，腰间的皮带上吊着好几把屠夫常用的刀具。自从比尔吉沃特的铁腕暴君倒台，各式各样的小帮派也变得明目张胆起来。随着海盗王的罢黜，城中的大小黑帮拔刀相向，渴望着扩大各自的势力范围。

“Now the dead cannot claim you,” he said as he finished his work and replaced his implements.

这几人完全没有掩饰自己的打算。他们穿着钉头皮靴，身上散出浓烈的内脏腐臭，嘴里还嘟囔着脏话——几百米开外的人都能发现他们。

“Maybe not, but we ain't leaving empty-handed, sure we ain't,” said a voice behind the hooded man.

“我不介意多送一个金币给胡子女士，绝对不会。”斩屠们中最肥壮的家伙开口说道。这胖子狂妄得有些过分，令人不禁怀疑他怎么会纡尊降贵去干又脏又臭的屠宰生计。他继续说：“但那位老哥儿，倒霉约翰，是我们的人弄死的，明明白白，绝对没错儿。所以他的金币也该是我们的。”

He turned and pulled back his hood to reveal skin the color and texture of aged mahogany, cheekbones that were angular and patrician. His dark hair was bound in a long scalp-lock and eyes that had seen horror beyond measure surveyed the newcomers.

“你想死在这里吗？”他沉声问道。

Six men. Dressed in aprons of blood-stiffened leather cut to display limbs of corded muscle wrapped with tattooed thorns. Each carried a serrated hook and wore belts hung with a variety of meat-workers’ knives. Petty thugs made bold by the fall of the tyrant who'd ruled Bilgewater with an iron fist. With him gone, the city was in chaos as rival gangs sought to carve out fresh territories.

胖子狂笑起来。

Their approach hadn’t been stealthy. Hobnailed boots, offal-stench and muttered curses had announced their presence long before they'd revealed themselves.

“你知道你在跟谁说话吗？”

“I don't mind a coin going to the Bearded Lady, sure I don't,” said the biggest of the Butchers, a man with a gut so prodigious it was a wonder he could get close enough to a carcass to gut it at all. “But one of ours killed Old Knock John there, fair and square, sure they did. So that gold serpent there was ours.”

“不。你呢？”

“Do you want to die here?” asked the man.

“说说看，我好知道在你的烂坟头上刻点什么。”

The fat man laughed.

“我的名字，是卢锡安。”话刚一出口，他便猛地甩开长襟外套的下摆，抽出了一对手枪。手枪由条石和无名的铮亮金属精心锻造，即使是祖安最不顾禁忌的炼金师也说不上具体的成分。一道迸发的光芒穿透胖屠夫的胸口，只留下一个边缘烧焦的空洞，原本浮夸跳动的心脏已不知去向。

“You know who you're talking to?”

卢锡安的另一把手枪稍小一些，但做工更加精美。枪口喷出一线灼热的黄色火光，劈向另一个斩屠，把他从锁骨到胯间直直撕成两半。

“No. Do you?”

他们就像之前的码头硕鼠一样抱头逃窜，但卢锡安擎着枪逐个点射，每一道光线都直奔要害。只一眨眼，六个屠夫就没一个活着的了。

“Go on then, tell me so I can carve it on the rock I'll use to sink your bones.”

他收起手枪，重新裹好大衣的下摆。刚才的骚动肯定会引来其他人，他已经没有时间拯救这些死者的灵魂了。

“My name is Lucian,” he said, whipping back his long frock coat and drawing a pair of pistols wrought of knapped stone and burnished metals unknown to even the most reckless alchemists of Zaun. A bolt of coruscating light punched the fat Butcher from his feet with a scorched hole where his grotesquely swollen heart had been.

卢锡安叹了口气。他本不该理会那个寒鸦的，但或许是因为曾经的自己还没完全丧失吧。一股迫人的回忆涌上来，他忍不住甩了甩头。

Lucian's second pistol was smaller, more finely crafted, and fired a searing line of yellow fire that cut another of the Butchers in half from collarbone to groin.

“我不能再变成老样子了。”卢锡安对自己说。

Like the wharf rats before, they fled, but Lucian picked them off one by one. Each burst of light was a killing shot. In the blink of an eye all six Butchers lay dead.

要想杀掉魂锁典狱长，他还远不够强大。

He sheathed his pistols and pulled the coat back around him. Others would be drawn by the sound and fury of his work, and he had no time to save these men’s souls from what was coming.

Lucian sighed. It had been a mistake to stop for the Jackdaw, but perhaps the man he had once been was not entirely lost. A memory threatened to surface and he shook his head.

“I cannot be him again,” said Lucian.

He isn't strong enough to kill the Chain Warden.

奥拉夫的霜鳞甲上沾满了血迹和内脏的残渣。他一边咕哝着一边挥着单手斧劈砍。斧头淬火时用的是取自弗雷尔卓德极北之地的臻冰，所以前方的骨头和筋肉如薄纸一般，不断地分崩离析。

Olaf’s frostscale hauberk was covered in blood and viscera. He grunted as he swung his axe one-handed. Bone sheared and muscle parted before the weapon, its blade quenched on a bed of True Ice deep in the farthest reaches of the Freljord.

他另一只手举着火星淋漓的火把，趟着这条海魁虫体内湿滑的血肉内脏前进。他靠着手中的斧头，一下一下地拆解它体内白花花的巨型脏器和密实的骨节，花了足足三个小时才走到这里。

Bearing a spitting torch in one hand, he waded through the dripping innards of the Krakenwyrm, hewing deeper with every swing. It had taken him three hours to reach this far; cleaving through its enormous glistening organs and dense bones.

当然，海魁虫已经死透了。他们从北方开始，追了整整一个月，直到一个星期之前才把这头怪兽钉死。冬吻号上的捕猎好手们往它身上足足射了三十多支鱼叉，每一支都穿透了它背上覆着厚鳞的硬皮，但最后还是靠奥拉夫的长矛才结束了海魁虫的挣扎。

True, the beast was already dead, skewered a week ago after a month’s long chase down from the north. Over thirty harpoons cast by strong arms and broad backs from the deck of Winter's Kiss pierced its scaled hide, but it had been Olaf's spear that finally ended its fight.

在比尔吉沃特城外的台风眼里猎杀怪兽无疑令人大呼过瘾。而除此之外，有那么一瞬间，当冬吻号侧倾时，差点把奥拉夫径直扔进海魁虫的嘴里。他当时激动地以为，自己终于能逃过平安终老的宿命了。

Killing the beast in the heart of a churning storm outside Bilgewater had been exhilarating, and for one brief moment – as the ship heeled over and almost tossed him into the beast's maw – he'd thought this might be the moment he would achieve the glorious death he sought.

但是，舵手斯瓦费尔大骂一声，雄健的臂膊遽然发力，硬生生把舵轮扳回正中，稳住了船身。

But then Svarfell the helmsman, curse his mighty shoulder, centered the rudder to right the ship.

奥拉夫不幸地活了下来。离他所害怕的命运又近了一天：预言里说，奥拉夫将会变成一个胡子花白的老头，在自家床上安详地逝去。

And, sadly, Olaf had lived. Another day closer to the terror of dying peacefully in his bed as a greybearded ancient.

冬吻号在比尔吉沃特靠岸，打算就地分解他们的战利品，并卖给当地人。比如宽阔的利齿、像油脂一样可燃的黑血、以及可以用来为他母亲的客厅作拱顶的巨型肋骨等等。

They'd berthed in Bilgewater, hoping to sell the carcass and strip it of battle trophies; vast teeth, black blood that burned like oil, and titanic rib-bones fit to roof his mother’s hall.

他手下的人已经被捕猎耗尽了体力，纷纷躺在冬吻号的甲板上睡着了。但奥拉夫向来没什么耐心。他顾不上休息，而是抓起寒光闪闪的斧子，独自开始了肢解巨兽的工程。

His fellow tribesmen, exhausted from the hunt, were sleeping aboard Winter's Kiss, but Olaf, ever impatient, could not rest. Instead, he took up his glittering axe and set to work in dismembering the colossal monster.

终于，海魁虫的咽喉出现在奥拉夫的眼前。喉管内壁棱纹交错，口径粗得能吞下一整个部落的人，或是一下就把一艘三十桨的私掠舰给绞碎。而它的牙齿就像是黑曜石的凿子一般坚硬锐利。

Finally he saw the beast’s inner maw, a ribbed gullet large enough to swallow a clan whole or crush a thirty-oar Longreaver in a single bite. Its teeth were chiseled fangs like obsidian boulders.

奥拉夫点点头：“呵，这给踏风人和烬骨学者拿去砌灶台正合适。”

Olaf nodded. “Yah. Fit to ring a hearth circle of the wind-walkers and the readers of bones and ash.”

他将火把尖锐的底端插进海魁虫的肉壁，腾出双手开始工作。他对着颌骨又劈又砍，忙了半天才撬下一颗牙。斧子往腰带上一挂，奥拉夫干脆地抱起兽牙扛在肩上。夸张的重量把他压得哼了一声。

He jammed the spiked base of the torch into the meat of the Krakenwyrm’s flesh and set to work, hacking at the jawbone until a tooth came loose. Hooking the axe to his belt, Olaf lifted it clear and set it upon his shoulder, grunting at the enormous weight.

“就像是霜巨魔搬冰块搭老窝一样。”他嘟囔着往外走，在齐膝深的血浆和消化液里跋涉。

“Like a Frost Troll gathering ice for his lair,” he said, making his way out of the beast’s innards, wading knee-deep in blood and caustic digestive juices.

终于，奥拉夫从海魁虫身后一处可怖的伤口钻了出来。他深吸一口，空气只能算是稍微清新了一点。即使是刚在怪兽的内脏里转了半天，比尔吉沃特感觉仍是一锅令人作呕的热汤。烟尘、汗臭和死人搅在一起沸反盈天。太多居民挤在狭小的空间里生存，简直就像在垃圾堆里苟活的猪猡。

Eventually he emerged from the giant wound in the Krakenwyrm’s rear and drew in a lungful of slightly fresher air. Even after the innards of the beast, Bilgewater was a rank soup of smoke and sweat and dead things. Its air was heavy with the smell of too many people living packed together like swine in a midden.

他往地上啐了一大口唾沫，愤愤地说：“老子越快回北方越好。”

He spat a rank mouthful and said, “The sooner I am in the north the better.”

弗雷尔卓德的空气清透凛冽，每呼吸一下都能让你骨头打颤。不像这里，闻起来到处是一股子臭牛奶或是烂肉的味道。

The air of the Freljord was so sharp it could cut you to the bone. Every breath here tasted of rancid milk and spoiled meat.

“喂！”水面上有人在喊。

“Hey!” shouted a voice over the water.

奥拉夫眯眼望去，只见一个渔民划着船，越过港区的浅水浮标线，还有浮标上挂着的铃铛和死鸟，往外海划去。

Olaf squinted through the gloom, seeing a lone fisherman rowing out to sea beyond a line of floating water markers hung with dead birds and bells.

“那怪兽刚把你拉出来吗？”渔民大声问。

“That beast just shit you out?” shouted the fisherman.

奥拉夫点头说：“我没有金币买船票，所以就让这家伙吞了我，然后从弗雷尔卓德一路南下带到了这里。”

Olaf nodded and said, “I had no gold to pay passage on a ship, so I let it swallow me in the Freljord and bear me south.”

渔民听到这话，笑得乐不可支。他举起一个破口的钴玻璃瓶，仰脖灌下一下大口：“我倒是很想听你吹完这个牛呢，真心的！”

The fisherman grinned and drank from a cracked bottle of blue glass. “I’d sit and listen to that tall tale, right enough!”

“冬吻号，找奥拉夫！我这有整桶的爪沃酒，还可以唱上几支葬歌，送这怪兽安息！”奥拉夫纵声大吼。

“Come to the Winter’s Kiss and ask for Olaf,” he shouted. “We’ll share a keg of Gravöl and honor the beast with songs of doom.”

寻常日子里，白港四周充斥着鸟粪和臭鱼的气味。但今天不同，风里带上了焦肉和木头焚烧的味道。厄运小姐心里清楚，这味道说明，普朗克手下的人死得越来越多了。灰烬遮天蔽日，屠宰码头上存放着的海兽油脂熊熊燃烧，恶臭的浓烟朝着西边涌去。她感觉自己嘴里的味道都变得油腻起来，于是往扭曲的木头架子上吐了一口。岸边的水面上浮着一层粘稠的渣滓，都是水下数以千计的尸体长年累月的贡献。

The air around the White Wharf usually smelled of gull-crap and rotten fish. Today it tasted of scorched meat and woodsmoke, a flavor with which Miss Fortune was coming to associate with ever more of Gangplank’s men dying. Ash darkened the sky and reeking fumes drifted westwards from burning vats of rendered leviathan blubber on the Slaughter Docks. Miss Fortune's mouth felt greasy, and she spat onto the crooked timbers of the wharf. The water below was scummed with residue expelled by the thousands of corpses sunk beneath the water over the years.

“你和你的人今晚可忙坏了。”她朝着西边冒烟的悬崖点了点头。

“You and your men had a busy night,” she said, nodding toward the smoke rising from the western cliffs.

“是，事情很多。”雷文同意道。“今天还有更多普朗克的人会死。”

“Aye, that we did,” agreed Rafen. “Plenty more of Gangplank’s men going under today.”

“你搞定了几个？”她问。

“How many did you get?” asked Miss Fortune.

“克雷格区那附近又干掉十个。还有就是，埋骨场那群混混一个都不剩了。”

“Another ten of his Cragside lads,” said Rafen. “And the Boneyard Scallys won’t be bothering us again.”

厄运小姐点头表示赞许，然后转头看向岸边，那里摆着一口纹饰精美的铜炮。

Miss Fortune nodded in approval and turned to look at the ornate bronze cannon laid on the quayside.

躺在里面的人是折刀拜恩。他在那个翻天覆地的日子里被一发子弹击中，与冥渊号一起死在了比尔吉沃特全城人的注视下。

Jackknife Byrne lay inside the barrel, finally dead from the gutshot he'd taken on the day everything changed; the day the Dead Pool exploded in full view of Bilgewater.

而那一枪本是要给她的。

A gunshot meant for her.

现在，拜恩就要沉入水下，加入到成群的死者行列中了。她知道自己欠他一份恩情，因而前来送葬。送行的大约还有两百号人，男男女女，包括她的副官们、拜恩以前的帮派成员、还有一些陌生人——她猜要么是他曾经的船员，要么就是一些看客，想见识一下解决了普朗克的女人到底长什么样。

Now it was time for Byrne to go down among the dead men and she owed it to him to be there to see him go under. Around two hundred men and women had come to pay their respects; her own lieutenants, Byrne's old gang members, and strangers she thought might be former crewmen or curious gawkers hoping to see the woman who'd brought down Gangplank.

拜恩说自己也曾有过一条船，一条双桅横帆船，诺克萨斯沿岸无人不知的恐怖化身。但她也只是听他这么说过而已，真假无从考证。但是在比尔吉沃特，真相往往比城里数不尽的船歌所讲述的故事更为离奇。

Byrne said he'd once run his own ship, a two-masted brigantine that was the terror of the Noxian coast, but she only had his word for that. Maybe that was true, maybe it wasn't, but in Bilgewater, more often than not the truth was far stranger than any tale spun by the city’s many chanty-men.

“我听说，你让屠宰码头上的家伙们打得不可开交。”厄运小姐说着，伸手掸掉翻领上的烟尘。鲜红的长发从她的三角帽下流泻而出，越过肩膀，在双排扣制服的前襟拢起。

“I see you got them fighting each other out on the Slaughter Docks as well,” said Miss Fortune, brushing particles of ash from her lapels. Long red hair spilled from beneath a tricorn hat and gathered on the shoulders of her formal frock coat.

“是，鼠镇群狗和港王帮之间很容易挑拨。温·加拉尔早就等着这天了。他一直在说，那块地盘是十多年前特拉弗恩的小弟们从他老爹的手里抢过去的。”雷文回答道。

“Yeah, wasn’t hard to turn the Rat Town Dogs and Wharf Kings against each other,” said Rafen. “Ven Gallar's always had his eye on that patch. Says Travyn's boys took it from his old man a decade ago.”

“是吗？”

“That true?”

“鬼知道。但根本就无所谓。为了罩下码头那片地盘，加拉尔有什么不敢说的。我只是推了他一把而已。”

“Who knows?” said Rafen. “Don’t matter, no-how. Gallar would say anything to get control of that part of the docks. I just helped him along.”

“现在那地方也没什么可罩的了。”

“Not much left to control over there now.”

“是。他们拼光了人手，没几个活下来。这两个帮派算是彻底完蛋，他们不可能来找我们麻烦了。”雷文微笑着同意。

“No,” agreed Rafen with a grin. “They pretty much killed the hell out of each other. Don't reckon we'll get trouble from either of them gangs any time soon.”

“这样的话，不出一个星期，普朗克的人就一个不剩了。”

“Another week like this and there won't be any of Gangplank’s people left alive.”

听到这话，雷文看着厄运小姐，不禁露出一种奇怪的表情。而她假装没有看到。

Rafen gave her a strange look and Miss Fortune pretended not to notice.

“来吧，我们送拜恩下去。”她说。

“Come on, let's get Byrne sunk,” said Miss Fortune.

他们走向那尊火炮，准备把它滚进海里。黏腻的水面上浮碑林立：既有简单的木头板子，也有刻工精细的海怪雕塑。

They walked over to the cannon, ready to roll it into the sea. A forest of wooden markers dotted the scummed surface of the water, ranging from simple wooden discs to elaborate sculptures of sea wyrms.

“有谁想说点什么吗？”厄运小姐问。

“Anyone want to say anything?” said Miss Fortune.

没人回答。她朝雷文点头示意。但当他们即将把火炮推到水边时，一个声音炸雷一般响起，回荡在白港上空。

Nobody did, and she nodded to Rafen, but before they could tip the cannon into the water, a booming voice echoed over the wharf.

“且让我说两句。”

“I bring words for him.”

厄运小姐回头，看到一个身材极其伟岸的女子，身上披着织造极其复杂的重彩长袍，不紧不慢地踱下码头朝他们走来。一队带着刺青的少年跟在她身后，手执带有锯齿的长矛，腰里悬着阔口手枪和棒勾。一行人耀武扬威地站在领头的女祭司身后，感觉整个白港都是他们的地盘。

Miss Fortune turned to see a giant of a woman clad in colorful robes and acres of fabric striding down the docks towards them. A posse of tattooed menfolk accompanied her; a dozen youths armed with tooth-bladed spears, wide-mouthed pistols and hooked clubs. They swaggered like the cocksure gangers they were, standing with their priestess like they owned the docks.

“活见鬼，她来这儿想干什么？

“Seven hells, what's she doing here?”

“俄洛伊认识拜恩？”

“Did Illaoi know Byrne?”

“不，她认识我。”厄运小姐说，“我听说她和普朗克曾经……你明白吗？”

“No. She knows me,” said Miss Fortune. “I heard that her and Gangplank used to...you know?”

“真的？”

“Really?”

“传闻如此。”

“So the scuttlebutt goes.”

“胡子女士在下！怪不得前几个星期，奥考那帮人一直跟我们过不去。”

“By the Bearded Lady, no wonder Okao's men have been giving us such a hard time these last few weeks.”

俄洛伊手里提着一个沉重的石球，看起来跟塞壬号的船锚分量相当。身如铁塔的女祭司不管去哪儿都带着它，厄运小姐猜测那应该是某种图腾。此外，俄洛伊那群人给胡子女士起了另外一个名字。一个非常拗口的怪名。

Illaoi carried a heavy stone sphere that looked as if it weighed about as much as the Syren's anchor. The towering priestess carried it everywhere she went, and Miss Fortune assumed it was some kind of totem. What everyone else called the Bearded Lady, they called something virtually unpronounceable.

俄洛伊不知从哪里摸出一个剥了皮的芒果，咬了一口。她大嚼着果肉，低头往炮筒里看去。

Illaoi produced a peeled mango from somewhere and took a bite. She noisily chewed the fruit with her mouth open and looked down the barrel of the cannon.

厄运小姐这辈子从来没那么真诚地期望过，这门炮是上好膛了的。

“A Bilgewater man deserves a blessing of Nagakabouros, yes?”

“一个比尔吉沃特的男人，理应得到娜伽卡波洛丝[注 ：俄洛伊所属教派对胡子女士的称谓。]的祝福，对吗？”

“Why not?” said Miss Fortune. “He's going down to meet the goddess, after all.”

“当然。不过他很快就要下去见到那位女神了。”厄运小姐说。

“Nagakabouros doesn't live in the depths,” said Illaoi. “Only foolish paylangi think that. Nagakabouros is in everything we do that moves us along our path.”

“娜伽卡波洛丝并不在深渊里。只有愚昧的小粉脸们[注：比尔吉沃特人对于非本地居民的蔑称。]才这么想。娜伽卡波洛丝存在于我们所行的每件事中，以及所行的每条路上。”

“Yeah, how stupid of me,” said Miss Fortune.

“嗯对，你看我多蠢啊。”厄运小姐连声说。

Illaoi spat the fibrous mango pit into the water and swung the stone idol around like a giant cannonball, holding it up in front of Miss Fortune.

俄洛伊头一偏，把芒果核吐进了海里。她晃着手里巨型炮弹一样的石球，平举到厄运小姐的脸跟前。

“You're not stupid, Sarah,” said Illaoi with a laugh. “But you don't even know what you are, what you've done.”

“你并不蠢，莎拉。”俄洛伊爽快地笑起来。“而你不知道自己的本质，也不知道所行的意义。”

“Why are you really here, Illaoi? Is this about him?”

“俄洛伊，你来这儿到底为了什么？为了那个人吗？”

“Ha! Not even a little bit,” snorted Illaoi. “My life is for Nagakabouros. A god or a man? What choice is that?”

“哈！没半点关系。”俄洛伊不屑地哼了一声，“我的生命只为娜伽卡波洛丝而存在。男人跟神明，两者能相提并论吗？”

“None at all,” said Miss Fortune. “Bad luck for Gangplank.”

“当然不能。普朗克真倒霉。”厄运小姐附和道。

Illaoi grinned, exposing a mouthful of pulped mango.

俄洛伊咧嘴微笑，露出满满一嘴的芒果肉。

“You're not wrong,” she said with a slow nod, “but you still don't hear. You let a razor-eel off the hook and you ought to stamp on its neck and walk away before it sinks its fangs into you. Then your motion will be gone forever.”

“你说的没错，”俄洛伊缓缓点头，“但仍然蒙昧。你把一条剃刀鳗从鱼钩上解了下来，就该往它的脖子再踩一脚。然后趁它的尖牙还没咬上你时，离得越远越好。否则，运动就会永远弃你而去。”

“What does that mean?”

“什么意思？”

“Come and see me when you figure it out,” said Illaoi, holding out her hand. Nestled in her palm was a pendant of pink coral arranged in a series of curves radiating from a central hub like a single, unblinking eye.

“当你明白了就来找我吧。”俄洛伊展平手掌，手心里躺着一枚挂饰。一块粉红色的珊瑚，许多纹路绕着中心放射出去，如同一只不会眨动的眼睛。

“Take it,” said Illaoi.

“拿去。”

“What is it?”

“这是什么？”

“A token of Nagakabouros to guide you when you’re lost.”

“娜伽卡波洛丝的符记。在你迷失的时候，它会指引你。”

“What is it really?”

“我问的是，这是什么东西。”

“Nothing more than I say.”

“如是我言，别无它意。”

Miss Fortune hesitated, but too many people were gathered for her to openly offend a priestess of the Bearded Lady by refusing her gift. She took the pendant and removed her tricorn to loop the leather thong around her neck.

厄运小姐有些犹豫，但是当着这么多人的面拒绝一位胡子女士的祭司的礼物显然不太合适。她接过挂饰，然后脱下三角帽，将皮绳挂在了自己的脖子上。

Illaoi leaned in to whisper.

俄洛伊靠近她的耳边，低声说了句话。

“I don’t think you're stupid,” she said. “Prove me right.”

“我觉得你并不愚蠢。别让我看错了。”

“Why do I care what you think?” said Miss Fortune.

“我干嘛在乎你怎么想？”

“Because a storm is coming,” said Illaoi, nodding at something over Miss Fortune's shoulder. “You know the one, so you best be ready to turn your prow into the waves.”

“因为一场风暴就要来临。”俄洛伊说着，目光越过厄运小姐的肩膀，“你并不陌生，所以你最好随时准备着，将船头迎向海浪。”

She turned and kicked Byrne's cannon from the dock. It splashed down hard and sank in a froth of bubbles before the fatty surface residue reformed, leaving only its bobbing marker cross to indicate who was below.

她转身一脚踢在装着拜恩尸体的火炮上。火炮重重地砸进水里，带着一串气泡沉下去。海面上的浮渣再度缓缓聚成一片，只留下一个十字架浮标轻轻摆动，昭示着水下埋葬着谁。

The priestess of the Bearded Lady marched back the way she had come, towards her temple in the cliff-crater, and Miss Fortune turned her gaze out to sea.

胡子女士的祭司顺着来时的路离开了码头，走向峭壁上自己的神庙。厄运小姐则将视线抛向了海面。

A storm was brewing way out in the deep ocean, but that wasn't where Illaoi had been looking.

远洋之中，一场风暴已经酝酿成形。但那并非俄洛伊刚才所看的方向。

She'd been looking towards the Shadow Isles.

——女祭司目光的尽头，是暗影岛所在的位置。

没有人会在夜间的比尔吉沃特海湾打渔。

Nobody ever fished Bilgewater Bay at night.

皮特和这片水域打了一辈子的交道，他非常清楚个中的原因。平静的水流只是假象：水下潜藏着累累暗礁，随便一块都能顶破船舱的外壳。海床上满是遇难船只的残骸，无数船长为他们轻视大海的鲁莽举动付出了代价。但更可怕的是，溺毙的亡魂在海底一直孤独地期待着新来的死者。

Piet knew why, of course; he’d known these waters all his life. The currents were treacherous, hull-splitting rocks lurked just below the surface, and the seabed was littered with the wrecks of ships whose captains had not accorded the sea its proper respect. But, more importantly, everyone knew the spirits of those drowned at sea were lonely and wanted others to join them.

皮特对这些事情心知肚明，但为了养家糊口，没有别的办法。

Piet knew all this, but still needed to feed his family.

哀哭船长的战舰在普朗克和厄运小姐的火并之中被烧成了灰烬，而皮特也因此丢掉了自己的工作，连饭都吃不饱了。

With Captain Jerimiad’s ship burned to cinders in the crossfire between Gangplank and Miss Fortune, Piet had no work and no coin to pay for food.

出发之前，他一口气喝掉半瓶迅蟹烈酒，才鼓起足够的勇气在这样的夜晚把船推下了水。而那个弗雷尔卓德壮汉要与他分享美酒的许诺，更是安抚了他的不安。

He’d drunk half a bottle of Scuttler’s Scrumpy just to pluck up the courage to push his boat out onto the water tonight, and the prospect of sharing a drink with the giant Freljordian helped steady his nerves.

他抓起瓶子又灌下一大口，抹抹脏兮兮的胡子，又往船舷外倒了一小点儿，算是献给胡子女士。

Piet took another slug from the bottle, tugging the scruff of hair on his chin, then pouring a measure over the side to honor the Bearded Lady.

酒精让他感觉身上暖洋洋的，脑袋也有些沉。他划着船，越过挂着鸟尸的警戒浮标，直到他昨晚交好运的一块海域才停下来。哀哭船长总说，他的鼻子能嗅出哪里有鱼群正在抢食。而且他还有种感觉，鱼群聚集的地方就能找到冥渊号沉没后散落的遗物。

Warmed and numbed by the liquor, Piet rowed past the warning buoys and their dead birds until he came to a stretch of ocean where he’d had some luck the previous night. Jeremiad always said he had a nose for where the fish were biting, and he had a feeling they’d be gathering where the remains of the Dead Pool had drifted.

皮特把船桨抽起来扔进舱底，喝光了剩下的半瓶飞毛腿。他看看瓶底，留了正好一口的量，然后把酒瓶甩进海里。他摸出几只从一个死人的眼窝里挖出来的蛆虫，抖索着不太听使唤的指头，把鱼饵串进鱼钩，再把鱼线挂在舷边的楔子上。

Piet pulled in the oars and stowed them before finishing off the Scrumpy. Then, making sure to leave a last mouthful in the bottle, he tossed it out to sea. With tired, drink-addled fingers he baited his hooks with grubs he’d scooped from a dead man’s eye and tied his lines to the gunwale cleats.

最后，他闭上眼，在船边弯下身子，把一双手浸在海水里。

He closed his eyes and bent over the side of the boat, placing both hands in the water.

“娜伽卡波洛丝。”他开始祈祷，祈求胡子女士赐予他一丝好运。“我想要的并不太多。请帮助这可怜的渔民，从您的仓廪中赏一份口粮。请照看我，保佑我。若我在您的怀中丧命，就让我与其他死者一起深藏吧。”

“Nagakabouros,” he said, hoping that using the natives’ name for the Bearded Lady might grant him a bit of luck, “I ain’t asking for much. Please help this poor fisherman and spare him a few morsels from your larder. Watch over me and keep me safe. And if I die in your embrace, keep me down among the dead men.”

皮特睁开了眼睛。

Piet opened his eyes.

离水面只有几寸距离，有一张苍白的脸正盯着他。毫无生气的冷光萤萤跳动。

A pale face stared back at him, wavering just below the surface. It shimmered with cold, lifeless light.

他惨叫一声，身子一弹，仰面摔倒在船里。船舷边的鱼线随即一根接一根地抽紧，一丝丝细线般的雾气升出水面，绕着渔船打圈。眨眼间，雾气就变得厚实起来，远处比尔吉沃特的灯光一下子就看不见了。取而代之的是海中翻滚而来的，漆黑如墨的浓雾。

He cried out and jerked back into his boat as, one by one, his fishing lines were pulled taut. They spun his boat around as thin coils of mist rose from the water. The mist thickened swiftly and soon the light from Bilgewater’s cliffs was lost to the darkness as coal-dark fog rolled in from the sea.

警戒浮标的方向传来一声死鸟的啼哭。铃铛乱响，漂浮的墓碑痉挛一般前后摇摆起来。

A cacophony of once-dead birds squawked from the warning markers, followed by the clamor of bells as their convulsing bodies swung the buoys back and forth.

黑雾来了……

The black mist...

皮特抢起船桨，慌乱地捅进桨架的口子里。黑雾带着迫人的寒冷，一接触到他，皮肤下的血管便迅速地坏死，显出一条条黑线。坟墓似的冰冷气息盘上他的脊背，皮特忍不住哭了出来。

Piet scrambled for his oars, fumbling in terror to fit them to the rowlocks. The mist was numbingly cold, and lines of necrotic black threaded his skin at its touch. He wept as the grave’s chill frosted his spine.

“胡子女士……渊底之母……娜伽卡波洛丝……”他啜泣着低声祈祷，“请带我回家。求求你，我诚心地——”

“Bearded Lady, Mother Below, Nagakabouros,” he sobbed. “Please guide me home. Please, this I beg of-”

他的祷告就此中断。

Piet never finished his plea.

一对带着锁链的弯钩穿破了他的胸膛，钩尖上醒目的鲜血滴成了一条溪流。第三把钩子捅穿了他的肚子，随后脖颈钻出了第四把。第五和第六把剜进他的双手，用力地将他拉倒，钉在了船舱里。

A pair of hook-headed chains erupted from his chest, droplets of vividly red blood streaming from their tips. A third hook punched through his belly, another his throat. A fifth and sixth gouged his palms and pulled them down hard, pinning Piet to his boat.

剧痛令他嚎叫起来。一个影子缓缓浮现在黑雾之中，身上散发着世间最纯粹的恶意，带角的头颅四周萦绕着翠绿色的火焰。皮特被凿穿的关节传来火烧般的痛感，仿佛是渴望复仇的恶灵正在品尝他的苦难。

Agony surged through him and he screamed as a figure of purest malice emerged from the black mist. Emerald fire haloed its horned skull, and sockets gouged by vengeful spirits burned as they savored his pain.

眼前的死灵全身裹在黑色的古旧法衣中，腰间生锈的钥匙刮擦着边缘。它的手中握着一盏引尸灯笼，连着锁链摇晃不停。里面不停地传出悲痛的呻吟，似乎蕴含着无穷的邪恶渴望。

The dead spirit was robed in ancient black vestments, and rusted keys scraped at its side. A chained corpse-lantern moaned and swayed with monstrous appetite from its clenched fist.

灯笼上打开了一方小门，皮特感觉自己温热的血肉内的灵魂松动了。深不见底的光晕中，饱受折磨的亡灵在无休止的炼狱中几近疯狂，发出撕心裂肺的尖叫。皮特挣扎着想守住自己的灵魂，但随着一把幽魂般无形的镰刀挥来，他的生命戛然而止。灯笼也咔嗒一声关上了。

The glass of the infernal lantern opened to receive him, and Piet felt his spirit tear loose from the warmth of his flesh. The wails of tortured souls shrieked from its depths, maddened by their unending purgatory. Piet fought to keep his spirit within his body, but a spectral blade scythed and his time in the world was ended as the glass of the lantern snapped shut.

“一个劣等的灵魂。”它的声音仿佛是砾石在墓碑上摩擦：“但却是锤石今夜收取的第一个。”

“A wretched soul you are,” said the reaper of his life, its voice like gravel on a tombstone. “But only the first to be claimed by Thresh this night.”

黑雾荡起一阵涟漪，隐约可以看见许多剪影浮现出来：怨毒的亡灵、嚎叫的游魂、恶鬼般的骑士……不一而足。

The black mist rippled, and the silhouettes of malefic spirits, howling wraiths and ghostly horsemen swelled within.

黑暗卷过海面，朝着陆地涌去。

The darkness boiled across the sea and swept onto land.

比尔吉沃特的灯光开始渐渐熄灭。

And the lights in Bilgewater started to go out.

#2

厄运小姐合上手枪的弹仓，将它们并排放在桌上的短剑旁。狂乱的钟声和尖啸的警报声回荡在山下的城市里。她很清楚那代表着什么。

Miss Fortune snapped the barrels of her pistols shut and laid them down on the table next to her short-bladed sword. Scores of frantic bells and shouts of alarm echoed from the panicked city below; she knew well what they signified.

蚀魂夜。

The Harrowing.

厄运小姐根本没把即将到来的风暴放在眼里。这座她刚刚占据的山顶别墅所有的窗户都敞开着，挑衅着死亡的阴影。呜咽的海风带着恶鬼的饥渴和刺骨的寒冷扑面而来。

In defiance of the incoming storm, she’d kept the shuttered windows of her newly-acquired villa open, daring the dead to come for her. Muttering winds carried their hunger and a cold that settled bone-deep.

这座别墅坐落于比尔吉沃特东边的一处悬崖上，原本属于一个恶贯满盈的黑帮头子。在普朗克倒台的混乱中，他被人拖出被窝，砸死在大理石阶上。

Perched high on Bilgewater’s eastern cliffs, the villa had once belonged to a hated gang leader. In the chaos of Gangplank’s fall, he’d been dragged from his bed and had his brains bashed out on the cobbles.

别墅现在的主人就是厄运小姐。她绝对不会允许同样的事情再发生一次。她抬起手，抚摸着俄洛伊在拜恩的葬礼上送她的挂饰。珊瑚的触感带着温热，虽然她并不真心相信它所代表的意义，但这无疑是一件漂亮的小玩意。

Now it belonged to Miss Fortune, and she’d be damned if she’d go the same way. She reached up and ran a fingertip around the curves of the pendant Illaoi had given her at Byrne’s sinking. The coral was warm to the touch, and though she didn’t truly believe in what it represented, it was a pretty enough bauble.

房门悄声打开，她也放开了手里的挂饰。

The door to her chamber opened and she let the pendant drop.

她没有回头便知道来人是谁。只有一个人敢不敲门就进屋。

She knew who was behind her without turning. Only one man would dare enter without knocking.

“你在干什么？”雷文问。

“What are you doing?” asked Rafen.

“你觉得我在干什么？”

“What does it look like I’m doing?”

“我觉得你在干蠢事，非常蠢。”

“Like you’re about to do something damned stupid.”

“蠢事？”厄运小姐双手放在桌面上，“我们付出了血的代价，才干掉了普朗克。我绝对不会让蚀魂夜就这样——”

“Stupid?” said Miss Fortune, placing her hands on the table. “We shed blood and lost good people to bring down Gangplank. I’m not going to let the Harrowing just-”

“就哪样？”

“Just what?”

“把这块地方从我的手里夺走。”她猛地抓起手枪，插进了后腰的皮套里。“你也不能阻止我。”

“Take this place from me,” she snapped lifting her pistols and jamming them into their custom tooled hip-scabbards. “And you’re not going to stop me.”

“我们不是来阻止你的。”

“We’re not here to stop you.”

厄运小姐一回头，看见雷文站在门槛那里，身后是一群她最精干的手下。他们全副武装地在门厅里等待着，手里拿着滑膛枪、左轮手枪、铿锵作响的土制破片炸弹和弯刀。武器品种繁多，就像是刚刚洗劫了一座博物馆。

Miss Fortune turned to see Rafen at the threshold of her chambers. A score of her best fighters waited in the vestibule beyond, armed to the teeth with a mixture of muskets, wheel-lock pistols, clanking bundles of clay splinter-bombs and cutlasses that looked like they’d been looted from a museum.

“看起来，你要干的事情也聪明不了多少。”

“Looks like you’re about to do something damned stupid as well,” she said.

“是。”雷文走向敞开的窗户，将百叶窗帘拉下来。“你觉得我们会让自己的船长独自面对吗？”

“Aye,” agreed Rafen, walking over to the open window and slamming the shutters closed. “You really think we’d let our captain go out to face that alone?”

“为了杀掉普朗克，我自己也差点儿没命，而且这事还没结束。我不指望你们跟着我去，至少今晚不行。”厄运小姐走到手下面前站定，双手歇在核桃木的手枪柄上。“这场战斗与你们无关。”

“I almost died bringing Gangplank down, and I’m not done yet. I don’t expect you to go with me, not tonight,” said Miss Fortune coming to stand before her men and resting her hands on the carved walnut grips of her guns. “This isn’t your fight.”

“鬼扯，当然有关。”雷文说。

“Course it bloody is,” said Rafen.

厄运小姐深吸一口气，点了点头。

Miss Fortune took a breath and nodded.

“有十成的可能性，我们看不到早晨的太阳。”她的唇边不禁鼓起一丝笑意。

“There’s every chance we won’t live to see morning,” she said, unable to keep the hint of a smile tugging at her lip.

“船长，这也不是我们第一次经历蚀魂夜了。”雷文拍打着剑柄顶端的骷髅头，说道：“这也绝对不会是最后一次。”

“This ain’t our first Harrowing together, Captain,” said Rafen, tapping the skull pommel of his sword. “And I’ll be damned if it’s our last.”

冬吻号刚出现在视野里，奥拉夫就听到了尖叫声。他一开始没太在意，因为比尔吉沃特成天有人尖叫。但当他看到男男女女恐惧地从船坞边逃开时，他的好奇心被撩起来了。

Olaf was in sight of the Winter’s Kiss when he heard the screams. He ignored them at first – screams were nothing new in Bilgewater – but then he saw men and women running from the quayside in terror, and his interest was piqued.

人们慌里慌张地从各自的船里逃到岸上，钻进曲里拐弯的街巷拼命逃跑。他们头也不回地逃命，有个倒霉的船员被绊进了水里也没人理睬。

They scrambled from their boats and fled for the crooked streets as fast as they could. They didn’t look back and they didn’t stop, not even when a shipmate tripped or fell into the water.

奥拉夫见过不少人在战场上逃命的样子，但这次有些不同。他感觉到一种更纯粹的恐惧。非要形容的话，那些在冰巫盘踞的冰川下冻僵的尸体脸上的表情更加类似。

Olaf had seen men run from battle, but this was something else. This was naked terror, the kind he’d only ever seen etched on the frozen corpses spat out by glaciers where the Ice Witch was said to dwell.

码头周围关窗户的声音连成了一串。奥拉夫看到各家门前挂着的那个古怪标志，每个都扑上了厚厚的白色粉末。悬崖高处的巨型绞车正向上吊起由船舱改造成的木材预制件。

Shutters were slamming shut all across the wharf and the strange symbols he’d seen on every door were frantically being dusted with white powder. Enormous winches were lifting timber structures formed from bolted-together hulls of ships high up the cliffs.

他在认出了一个酒吧老板。那个小破酒屋卖的啤酒淡得跟巨魔的尿差不多。奥拉夫朝老板挥手。

He recognized a tavern-keeper who ran a drinking den where the beer was only slightly stronger than troll piss and waved to him.

“这是怎么回事？”

“What’s going on?” shouted Olaf.

酒吧老板摇摇头，指指海面，然后砰地关上了门。奥拉夫把海魁虫的牙齿放在石头地面上，转向海面想看个究竟。

The tavern-keeper shook his head and pointed to the ocean before slamming his door. Olaf set the Krakenwyrm’s tooth on the stone wharf and turned to see what all the fuss was about.

起初他以为是一场正在路上的风暴，但再仔细看却发现，那不过是厚重的黑色海雾而已。只是这雾气移动的速度非比寻常，而且流动的感觉异常奇怪。

At first he thought a storm was coming in, but it was just thick black sea fog, albeit fog that approached with unnatural speed and fluid motion.

“啊，终于，”他取下勾在皮带上的斧头，“机会又来了。”

“Ah, now,” he said, unhooking his axe from his belt. “This looks promising.”

他把斧头在长满老茧的两手间换来换去。斧柄上裹着的皮革饱经战阵，摸上去令人心安。他开始活动肩膀的肌肉。

The feel of the weapon’s battle-worn leather grip was pleasing in his callused palm as he passed it from hand to hand, rolling his shoulders to loosen the muscles.

黑雾卷上了最远处的几艘船，奥拉夫的双眼猛然瞪大了。无数亡灵，仿佛来自最黑暗的噩梦，正在黑雾之中翻滚。一名身材高大的恐惧骑士，胯下是一匹奇美拉[注：希腊神话中狮头、羊身、蛇尾的喷火怪兽。]一样庞大的战马。他身前横架着一把黑色的巨镰，苍绿色的火焰环绕着刀锋。亡灵们离开他的身边，急速地朝着比尔吉沃特的码头推进。

The black mist swept over the farthest ships and Olaf’s eyes widened as he saw spirits plucked from the blackest nightmares writhing in the mist. A towering dreadknight, a monstrous chimera of warhorse and man, led them alongside a black-clad reaper limned in green fire. These lords of the dead left the spirit host to their sport on the quayside as they flew into Bilgewater proper with predatory speed.

奥拉夫曾在当地人悄声的低语中听到过一个词汇，蚀魂夜。好像是一个跟毁灭与黑暗有关的时节。但他没想到自己的运气这么好，撞上的时候恰巧手里还握着斧头。

Olaf had heard the natives speak in hushed whispers of something called the Harrowing, a time of doom and darkness, but hadn’t expected to be lucky enough to face it axe in hand.

死亡的主宰露出了它的爪牙，一头撞进成群的船只中，轻易地撕碎了一切。船帆和缆绳就像腐烂的肉片一样化为碎屑。船身被抛离水面，然后砸在另一艘船上，连沉重的桅杆也碎成了木片。

The host of the dead tore into the wallowing galleys, merchantmen, and corsair ships with claw and fang, ripping them apart like an ursine with its snout in a fresh kill. Sailcloth tore and rigging lines snapped as easily as rotten sinew. Heavy masts splintered as boats were tossed into one another and smashed to kindling.

一个幽魂飞进了冬吻号的船身，然后，奥拉夫就眼睁睁地看着龙骨穿出船体，断成了几截。只一下心跳的瞬间，整艘船就冻成了一坨木板，然后就像装满了石头一样沉下去。他看到自己的同胞落进水中，有某些东西伸出枯槁的肢体和挂着鱼钩的嘴巴，将弗雷尔卓德的水手们拖进了海底。

A host of screaming wraiths flew into the Winter’s Kiss and Olaf roared in anger as the Longreaver’s keel heaved and split, its timbers freezing solid in a heartbeat. The boat sank as swiftly as if its hold were filled with rocks, and Olaf saw his fellow Freljordians dragged below the water by creatures with cadaverous limbs and fish-hooked mouths.

“奥拉夫会让你生不如死！”他狂怒地大叫着，沿着码头冲刺起来。

“Olaf will make you wish you had stayed dead!” he yelled as he charged along the wharf.

翻滚的海面上升起许多亡灵，冰冷的爪子纷纷劈向奥拉夫。他的斧头划出一道闪光的弧线，发出破空的声响，斩向领头的亡灵。耳边响起尖锐的啸叫，亡灵们自觉地避让着斧刃。臻冰加持过的利斧可比任何魔法都更加致命。

Spirits boiled up from the ocean, icy claws slashing towards him. Olaf’s axe sang out, cleaving a glittering arc through the host. The dead screeched as his blade sundered them, its True Ice edge more lethal than any enchantment.

但好些亡灵没能从他的斧头下幸免，它们号哭着再次死去。而奥拉夫开始唱起歌来。这是他为自己光荣战死的时刻提前谱写的歌谣。歌词虽然简单，但其中的气势却和漫步冰原的吟游诗人们笔下的传奇相差无几。他究竟等了多久，才能放声唱出这些词藻？又有多少次，他曾害怕过自己根本没有机会唱起这首歌？

They howled as they died a second time and Olaf sang the song he’d written for the moment of his death with lusty vigor. The words were simple, but the equal of any saga told by the wandering poets of the ice. How long had he waited to sing these words? How often had he feared he might never get the chance?

一阵发光的雾气一下子笼住了他，雾中的鬼怪们如饥似渴地围在他周围。他的霜鳞甲上结了一层薄冰，亡灵致命的触摸让他感觉如同灼烧一样的疼痛。

A shimmering mist of snapping jaws swarmed him, specters and things of mist. Webs of frost patterned his hauberk and the deathly touch of voracious spirits burned his skin.

但奥拉夫的雄心却不甘屈服。狂战士的意志非他人所能理解，他的血液因狂怒而沸腾起来。他抖擞身体，撇开幽魂带来的疼痛。他感觉自己正在逐渐失去理智，只任凭怒意不断地堆积。

But Olaf’s heart was mighty and it fired his blood to heights of fury unknown to all but the berserker. He shrugged off the pain of the wraith touch, feeling reason recede and fury build.

他咬破嘴里的肌肉，嘴角随即泛起了猩红的口沫。他怒吼着，像疯子一样挥舞着斧头。他完全感受不到半点疼痛，一心只想着把敌人尽数砍死。

Crimson froth built at the corners of his mouth as he bit the inside of his cheeks raw. He roared and swung his axe like a madman, caring nothing for pain, only that he slew his enemies.

That they were dead already meant nothing to him.

Olaf drew his axe back, ready to strike another blow, when a deafening crash of splintering columns and roof beams erupted behind him. He spun to face this new foe as a blizzard of smashed wood and stone cascaded onto the quayside. Bladed shards sliced his face and fist-sized chunks of stone pummeled his arms raw. Rendered fats and animal fluids fell in a rank drizzle as a horrendous groaning issued from the black mist.

Then he saw it.

The spirit of the Krakenwyrm arose from the remains of the Slaughter Dock. Titanic and filled with fury, its ghostly tentacles lifted into the air and smashed down like thunderbolts hurled by a wrathful god. An entire street was smashed to ruin in the blink of an eye and Olaf’s berserker fury surged as he finally beheld a foe worthy of claiming his life.

Olaf raised his axe in salute of his killer.

“Ya beauty!” he yelled and charged to his doom.

女人很漂亮。一对杏仁似的大眼，饱满的嘴唇，还有德玛西亚人典型的高颧骨。这幅肖像算得上是杰作，但它却没能体现出赛娜的力量和决心。

The woman was beautiful, with wide, almond shaped eyes, full lips and the high cheekbones common to Demacia. The portrait in the locket was a miniature masterpiece, but it failed to capture the depth of Senna’s strength and determination.

他很少会打开这个挂盒，因为他觉得自己的心要是沉溺于悲伤之中，只会让他变得软弱。悲伤就是铠甲上的破绽。卢锡安无法容忍自己彻底地沉浸在失去她的悲痛中，所以他果断地合上了挂坠。他明白自己应该将这串项链埋在这个山洞的沙土中，但他却无法把有关她的回忆像她的尸身那样葬在黄土之下。

He rarely looked at her picture, knowing that to carry his grief too close to his heart made him weak. Grief was a chink in his armor. Lucian could not allow himself to truly feel her loss, so he snapped the locket shut. He knew he should bury it in the sand of this cave beneath the cliffs, but could not put her memory below the earth as he had her body.

他必须隔绝悲痛，直到杀死锤石为赛娜报仇那天为止。

He would shut the grief away until Thresh was destroyed and Senna’s death avenged.

只有到那时，卢锡安才会放肆地为她痛哭，并向面纱之女[注：德玛西亚人所敬奉的死神。在其他地方，人们称她为羊灵。献上供品。]

Then, and only then, would Lucian mourn his lost wife with tears and offerings to the Veiled Lady.

那个可怕的夜晚已经过去多久了呢？

How long had it been since that terrible night?

他感到悲伤如同无底的深渊，窥伺着将他彻底吞没的机会。然而，他又一次硬生生地压住了自己的情绪。他回忆起从教团那里学到的本领，开始默念一段咒文。他和赛娜都知道这段咒文，目的在于把任何情感都关在门外。唯有这样，他才能进入平衡的境界，才能面对超出想象的恐怖。

He felt the bottomless abyss of sorrow lurking in ambush and viciously suppressed it as he had so many times before. He drew on the teachings of his order, repeating the mantras he and Senna had been taught to close themselves off from emotion. Only then could he reach a place of equilibrium that would allow him to face deathly horrors beyond imagining.

悲伤慢慢退了下去，但终究没有完全消散。

The grief ebbed slowly, but it remained.

只有在他感觉自己与赛娜的回忆渐行渐远的时候，才会勉强自己打开挂盒。他发现自己已经无法想起很多细节，包括她下巴的弧线、皮肤的触感、还有确切的瞳色。

He’d opened the locket only reluctantly, feeling a growing distance between himself and Senna’s memory. He found he could no longer recall the exact sweep of her jawline, the smoothness of her skin or the precise color of her eyes.

复仇的路走得越久，也就离她越远。

The longer his hunt went on, the further away she felt.

卢锡安抬起头从肺中呼出一口气，强迫自己的心跳放慢下来。

Lucian lifted his head, letting the breath ease from his lungs, forcing his heartbeat to slow.

洞穴的四壁是暗淡的石灰石构成的，所在的悬崖上方就是比尔吉沃特。在水流的运动和当地居民的采石工程双重作用之下，城市下方形成了一个巨大的迷宫。没多少人知道它的存在。苍白的墙上蚀刻着回环的螺线、涌动的潮水以及一些像是不会眨动的眼睛的图案。

The walls of the cave were pale limestone, gouged from the cliffs upon which Bilgewater was built. The motion of water and the stone picks of the natives had crafted a labyrinth beneath the city few knew of or even suspected existed. The pale rock walls were etched with looping spirals, rippling waves and things that might have been unblinking eyes.

他知道这些符号都来自当地的宗教，但刻下它们的人已经很多年没有来过这里了。而他是跟着自己教团的密符才找到这里的。在瓦罗兰大陆上的任何一个城市，密符都标示着避难所和支援所在的位置。

He’d learned these were symbols of the native religion, but whoever had carved them had not visited this place in many years. He’d found it by following the secret symbols of his own order, symbols that would guide him to places of refuge and succor in any city of Valoran.

洞穴中只有洞顶反射的点滴微光，但当他的眼神随着螺纹刻线移动时，他的手心开始微微发亮。

Only dim reflections of light shimmered on the roof of the cave, but as his eyes followed the spiral of carvings, a shimmering radiance spread from his palm.

让我作你的盾。

Let me be your shield.

卢锡安低头看去，赛娜的话语清晰得仿佛她就在身旁。

Lucian looked down, the memory of her words as clear as though she stood next to him.

项链挂盒正闪耀着摇曳的绿色火光。

The locket glistened with lambent green flame.

他将项链挂回脖子上，然后拔出了那对曾是遗物的双枪。

He looped the chain of the locket around his neck and swept up his twin relic pistols.

“锤石……”他的声音仿佛呓语。

“Thresh,” he whispered.

比尔吉沃特的街道已经几近废弃。海上的钟声依旧兀自响着，充满恐惧的哭号在山下回荡。整个鼠镇已完全浸在了黑雾中，哀悼坞的废墟上狂风呼啸。火焰沿着屠夫之桥一路焚烧，一团透着微光的雾霾在灰港上方的悬崖处盘桓。

Bilgewater’s streets were deserted. The bells from the ocean were still ringing and cries of terror echoed from below. Rat Town was completely covered by the Black Mist, and howling storms raged over Port Mourn’s desolation. Fires burned all along Butcher’s Bridge and a shimmering fog clung to the cliffs above the Grey Harbor.

上城区的人们躲在自己家中，向胡子女士祈祷着蚀魂夜饶过他们的性命。而那些屋不蔽体的穷苦人就没那么幸运了。

The people in the upper reaches of the city hid in their homes and prayed to the Bearded Lady that the Harrowing would pass them by, that grief would fall upon some other poor unfortunate.

每个窗户前都点着鲸粪制成的守夜烛，火光透过海玻璃的瓶子莹莹跳动。家家户户的门板上都挂着点燃的女王草，窗棂用长条木板钉得死死的。

Warding candles of ambergris burned in every window, shimmering through bottle green sea-glass. Burning roots of Empress of the Dark Forest hung from doors, shutters and nailed up planks.

“人们真的相信女王草有用？”厄运小姐问。

“People really believe in the Empress?” asked Miss Fortune.

雷文耸耸肩。他的嘴唇抿成一条细线，聚精会神地搜索着雾气中的危险，眼眶周围的皱纹都绷紧了。

Rafen shrugged, his mouth a thin line and the creases around his eyes pulled tight as he searched the gathering mist for threats. He pulled out a smoldering length of identical root from beneath his shirt.

他从衣服底下抽出一根闷燃着的草根。

“It’s all about where you place your faith, isn’t it?”

“信则有，不是么？”

Miss Fortune drew her pistols.

厄运小姐拔出双枪。

“I have faith in these and in us,” she said. “What else are you carrying?”

“我信这个，还有你们。你还带了别的武器吗？”

“This cutlass has kept me safe through six Harrowings,” he said, tapping its pommel again. “I offered up a bottle of ten year old rum to the Bearded Lady and this knife here was sold to me by a man who swore its edge was purest sunsteel.”

“这把弯刀，保护我安然度过了六次蚀魂夜。”他敲着剑柄说。“我向胡子女士献了一整瓶十年陈酿的朗姆酒，然后我就买到了这把刀。卖刀的人发誓说，刀锋用的是质地最纯的炎阳钢。”

Miss Fortune glanced at the scabbarded knife, certain without even seeing the blade that Rafen had been swindled. The workmanship around the quillons was too poor to be Demacian, but she wasn’t about to tell him that.

厄运小姐只看了一眼他的刀鞘，就知道雷文当时被人骗了。护手部分的做工实在过于简陋，不可能出自德玛西亚工匠之手。但她并不打算告诉他。

“What about you?” he asked.

“你呢？”雷文问。

Miss Fortune patted her pouch of pistol shot.

厄运小姐轻拍了一下子弹袋。

“Every one’s been dipped in Myron’s Dark,” she said, loud enough for every one of her thirty-strong company to hear. “If the dead want a fight, we’ll meet them with spirits of our own.”

“你们每个人都是在麦龙黑酒里泡大的。”她提高声音，好让三十来个人都能听到。“如果死灵想干一架的话，就让它们见识一下什么叫烈性子！”

The oppressive gloom made it hard to laugh, but she saw a few smiles and that was about as much as she could expect on a night like this.

压抑的阴云之下，没人笑出声来。但她确实看到几个人的脸上浮出了笑意。对于这样一个夜晚来说，那就足够了。

She turned and pushed down into Bilgewater, descending crooked stairs cut into the rock of the cliffs, crossing secret bridges of half-rotted rope and threading forgotten alleys that hadn’t known the tread of feet in years.

她转身往山下的比尔吉沃特走去。走下悬崖上嵌入石壁的曲折楼梯，经过烂麻绳捆扎的隐秘小桥，穿过多年无人涉足的羊肠小道，一路向下。

She brought them out into a wide square on one of the floating wharf-shanties, where swaying dwellings leaned together as though their twisted eaves whispered to one another. Every façade was a mishmash of driftwood, and patterns of frost clung to the skewed timbers. Frozen winds blew through the patchwork dwellings, freighted with sobs and screams from afar. Flaming braziers hung from hundreds of mast-lines strung between buildings, smoking with strange herbs. Pools of water rippled with reflections of things that weren’t there.

她带着手下钻出一条小路，来到一块由棚屋屋顶组成的开阔地带。棚屋漂在水中，成群地挤在一起，屋檐交错，似乎在互相低语。目之所及的一切都是杂乱的漂木，上面的霜结成细密的纹路。冰冻的风穿过错杂的废墟，带来远处的啜泣和惨呼声。残存的建筑之间架着桅木，上面挂着火盆，里面焖着一些奇怪的药草，正散出缕缕青烟。水潭中倒映着一些诡异的影子，粼粼波动。

Most days this was a thriving marketplace, packed to the gunwales with stalls, rattling meat-vendors, drink-hawkers, merchants, pirates, bounty hunters and surly flotsam washed in from every corner of the world. Just about everywhere in Bilgewater had a view of this place, which was just how Miss Fortune wanted it.

这里往日是一个非常繁荣的市场。人们在相接的船舷处搭起了各色小摊。肉商、酒贩子、海盗、赏金猎人和乖戾的流浪汉从世界各地涌到这里。在比尔吉沃特城里几乎任何地方都能清楚地看到这里，而这正是厄运小姐所希望的。

Mist clung to every outcropping of timber.

雾气开始在木头上凝集。

Discarded figureheads wept frozen tears.

废弃的船首像脸上流下了冻结的泪珠。

Mist and shadows gathered.

雾气和暗影汇聚起来。

“Cutpurse Square?” said Rafen. “How did we get here? I ran this place as a wharf-snipe. Thought I knew every way in and out like any good little thief.”

“扒手广场？”雷文说。“怎么会走到这里？我以前在这儿混过的。我还以为我已经知道所有进出的路了。”

“Not every way,” said Miss Fortune.

“并不是所有。”厄运小姐说。

The counting houses on either side were silent and dark, and she resisted the impulse to look through the torn sheets of flapping canvas nailed over porthole windows.

街道两旁的房屋在黑暗中一片死寂，破烂的帆布窗帘正翻飞着。她努力不去看窗帘后面的圆窗里有什么东西。

“How do you know these routes and I don’t?”

“为什么你会知道这些路？我居然都不知道。”

“Lady Bilgewater and I are two of a kind,” said Miss Fortune, her gaze narrowing as black mist seeped into the square. “She whispers her secrets to me like an old friend, so I know her every hidden wynd and jitty like you never will.”

“比尔吉沃特跟我天生一对，所以她会告诉我很多秘密。这些暗巷黑街的位置，你永远也不会知道。”

Rafen grunted as they spread into the empty square.

雷文咕哝一声，带着众人分散开来。

“What next?”

“然后呢？”

“We wait,” said Miss Fortune as they reached the center of the square, feeling terribly exposed.

“等。”厄运小姐看着他们走到广场中心，毫无遮掩地暴露在空地上。

The black mist twitched with things moving in its depths.

黑雾的深处有东西在翻滚，带得雾气痉挛似地抖动。

A disembodied skull of ghostly light stretched from the darkness, empty-eyed and with sharpened teeth. Its jaw stretched wider than any natural bone structure would allow and a keening wail built in its gullet.

一个鬼火形态的骷髅头从黑暗中探出来，眼窝空空，尖牙利齿。它的下颚拉开到任何关节都无法做到的地步，喉咙里刺出一声哀恸的嘶叫。

Miss Fortune’s bullets punched through each of its eye-sockets and the skull vanished with a shriek of frustration. She twisted the wheel-lock on each pistol and ingenious mechanisms within reloaded each one.

厄运小姐的子弹倾泻而出，全部钻进了骷髅的眼眶。只听得一声不甘的利叫，骷髅便散去了形体。她甩开手枪弹仓，极其利落地又装满了子弹。

For a moment, all was silent.

突然一瞬间，一切死寂。

Then the black mist erupted in a screeching howl as the spirits of the dead surged into the square.

黑雾猛地炸开，无数亡灵尖叫着涌进了广场。

奥拉夫砍开海魁虫的身体，又一次钻了出来。他像个失心疯的木匠，兴高采烈地挥着斧子左砍右劈，完全不计后果。虽然怪物的肢体如同雾气般有形无实，但在他刮着冰风的斧刃招呼下，也如血肉一样皮开肉绽。

For the second time this evening, Olaf cut his way inside the dead Krakenwyrm. He wielded his axe like a crazed woodsman, hewing left and right with gleeful abandon. The beast’s vast limbs were insubstantial as mist, yet the ice of his blade clove them like flesh.

几条触手高高扬起，继而猛然拍下，却扑了个空。奥拉夫虽然壮实，但速度却毫不逊色。手脚不利索的战士在弗雷尔卓德可没法活下来。他就地一滚，反手劈出，一条触手被齐根斩断落在地上，然后消散无踪。

Tentacles flailed and slammed down on the stone of the wharf, but Olaf was fast for a big man. Slow warriors didn’t survive in the Freljord. He rolled and slashed with his axe, severing a suckered length of limb that faded from existence as it was parted from the monster’s body.

他的身上披着鲜血，仿佛一件艳红的寿衣。四周舞动的触手不停向他抽过来。一片混乱的景象里，他看见了海魁虫的脑袋。

Even in the grip of the red shroud, Olaf saw the creature’s skull in the thrashing chaos of phantom limbs surrounding him.

它的眼睛里跳动着愤怒的灵火。时间似乎停滞了一瞬，他们之间的某种联系被唤醒了。

Its eyes were afire with the enraged spirit of its life.

这怪兽的灵魂认得他。

A moment of sublime connection passed between them.

奥拉夫快乐地大笑。

The beast’s soul knew him.

“你见到干掉你的人了！联结我们的正是死亡！要是你杀了我，我们就可以在另一个世界永远战斗下去了！”奥拉夫大吼。

Olaf laughed with joy.

面对这样的强敌，永世相争的渴望为奥拉夫酸痛的肌肉又注入了力量。他奔向怪兽大张的嘴，不顾海魁虫的触手甩在他身上的剧痛——这比洛克法海岸的凛风更甚百倍。

“You see the taker of your life and we are now bonded in death!” he roared. “Mayhap if you kill me, we shall battle forever in the realms beyond mortal ken.”

他高高地跃起，斧头举过头顶。

The prospect of eternal war against so mighty a foe poured fresh strength into Olaf’s aching muscles. He charged towards the creature’s maw, caring nothing for his pain as each brush with the Krakenwyrm’s tentacles burned his skin worse than the splinter-winds of the Lokfar coast.

他的眼前便是光荣的死亡。

He leapt into the air, axe aloft.

一条触手凌空缠住他的大腿。

He looked glorious death in the face.

奥拉夫被触手一甩，划出一道令人眩晕的弧线，抛到了半空中。

A tentacle whipped out and lashed around his thigh.

“来吧！”奥拉夫声如炸雷，利斧朝天，向他和他的敌人共同的命运致敬。“至死方休！”

It swung him around in a dizzying arc, lifting him high into the air.

“Come then!” bellowed Olaf, punching his axe skyward in salute of their shared destiny. “Unto death!”

一个幽魂伸着爪子，满口冰冷的尖牙，从滚滚涌动的亡灵中冲出来。厄运小姐一颗子弹正中它面门。幽魂化作一阵烟尘，被风吹散了。

A wraith-creature with grasping talons and a mouth of icy fangs lunged from the swirling mass of spirits. Miss Fortune put a bullet through its face and it vanished like smoke in a gale.

又一枪过去，另一个亡灵也退散无踪。

A second shot and another spirit vanished.

她虽然心里也有些害怕，但却微微一笑，然后飞快地窜到一根系缆桩后面换子弹。石头桩子历经风雨侵蚀，上面刻着河流之王的雕像。不知哪来的冲动，她倾过身子，在他咧嘴大笑的脸上印下一个吻。

She grinned through her fear as she spun into cover behind a weather-worn stone bollard of the River King to reload. On impulse, she leaned over and gave his toothy grin a kiss.

信则有。

It’s all about where you place your faith.

那该信神，还是子弹？亦或是，她自己的本事呢？

Gods, bullets or her own skill?

手枪咯噔一响卡住了，她脸上的笑意登时退去。母亲的告诫从记忆最深处浮现出来。

The grin fell from her face as one of the pistols jammed with a grinding crunch of metal. Her mother’s admonishing words arose from the dark recesses of memory.

“莎拉，如果让别人来配火药，你的枪就会这样。”厄运小姐喃喃地说。她把手枪插回皮套，抽出了自己的佩剑。这是她从一个当时正北上前往恕瑞玛的船长手里抢来的战利品。做工精湛，堪称制剑工艺的典范。

“That’s what you get when someone else mixes your powder, Sarah,” she said, holstering the gun and sliding her sword from its sheath. She’d looted it from the captain of a Demacian galiot running north up the Shuriman rust-coast, and it was as fine an example of the artificer’s art as any she’d seen.

厄运小姐翻身站起，手枪快速击发，同时挥剑砍向雾中的灵体。枪火摧枯拉朽，剑光矫健如电。这些亡灵会感受到肉体的疼痛吗？似乎不太可能，但她确实打到了什么东西。

Miss Fortune spun from cover, firing her loaded pistol and slashing her sword through the mist creatures. Her shot plucked another specter from the air and her sword’s edge bit as if cutting flesh and bone. Did the spirits of the dead have a physical component to them that could be hurt? It seemed unlikely, but she was wounding something inside them.

她无暇考虑太多，而只感觉无论那是何方神圣，都会在她的剑下被打回原形。

She didn’t have time to think too hard on the matter and suspected that whatever power she’d tapped into would be undone if she did.

呼啸的亡灵风暴吞没了扒手广场。它们张扬着爪子，追捕着逃命的人群。有些人的血液被冻成了冰棍，有些人则眼看着自己的心脏被扯出胸腔。死了七个人，他们的灵魂从尸体上被剥离出来，变成了亡灵中的一员。但她英勇的部下毫不退缩，他们举起火枪和长剑殊死搏斗，嘴里要么喊着胡子女士、要么是自己的爱人，或者干脆是某些遥远地方的异教邪神。

Men and women screamed as the howling storm of dead spirits filled Cutpurse Square, slashing with claws that froze their blood or reached into chests and sundered hearts with terror. Seven were dead, maybe more, their souls wrenched from their fallen corpses to turn on their comrades. Her heroic band fought with blades and muskets, shouting the name of the Bearded Lady, their loved ones, and even heathen gods of faraway lands.

信就行了。厄运小姐心想。

Whatever works, thought Miss Fortune.

雷文一只腿半跪在地上，脸如金纸，呼吸急促得就像是在码头上干了一整天。几缕雾气像蛛丝一样黏上了他，脖子上那根阴燃着的女王草发出剧烈的桃红色光芒。

Rafen was down on one knee, his face ashen, breathing like a wharfside doxy after a long shift. Scraps of mist clung to him like cobwebs and the smoldering root around his neck burned with a fierce cherry red glow.

“站起来！还没打完呢！”她冲着雷文大喊。

“On your feet, this fight isn’t done!” she said.

“不用你跟我说！”他咬着牙站起来：“我见过的蚀魂夜，比你打理过的死老鼠尾巴还多！”

“Don’t tell me the fight’s not done,” he snapped, pushing himself to his feet. “I’ve been through more Harrowings than you could wrap a dead rat’s tail around.”

厄运小姐还没来得及问他那到底是什么意思，就看到雷文歪过身子往她身后开了一枪。一个似乎是狼与蝙蝠混合的亡灵惨叫着消失了。她立即拔枪，打死雷文身后一个已经露出爪牙的亡灵，算是还了副官一个人情。

Before Miss Fortune could ask exactly what that meant, he leaned to the side and fired his pistol at something behind her. A conjoined spirit of wolf and bat screeched as it was banished, and Miss Fortune returned the favor as a spirit form of grasping hooks and snapping fangs lunged at her second in command.

“大家趴下！”她大喊一声，从皮带上拧下两个破片炸弹，一个高抛扔进了浓雾中。

“Everyone down!” shouted Miss Fortune, plucking a pair of splinter bombs from her belt and lobbing them into the howling mist.

爆炸声震耳欲聋，木片和碎石裹挟着火光和浓烟四处飞溅。晶亮的玻璃碎片像刀子一样瓢泼而下。广场上只剩下辛辣呛人的烟雾——但这里头可没有什么亡灵。

They detonated in a deafening explosion of fire and smoke. Wood splinters and fragments of stone ricocheted. Broken glass fell in a glittering rain of daggers. Acrid fog filled the square, but it was man-made and entirely bereft of spirits.

雷文甩甩脑袋，手指在耳朵里掏个不停。

Rafen shook his head and worked a finger in his ear.

“这炸弹是什么做的？”

“What was in that bomb?”

“黑火药，混上树脂和芸香。我特制的。”

“Black Powder mixed with essence of copal and rue,” said Miss Fortune. “One from my special stash.”

“那些东西对亡灵有用吗？”

“And stuff like that works against the dead?”

“我母亲相信有用。”

“My mother believed in it,” she said.

“够厉害的。我觉得我们好像赢——”雷文刚要说下去。

“Good enough for me,” said Rafen. “You know, we might just make it through-”

“别说。”厄运小姐打断了他。

“Don’t say it,” warned Miss Fortune.

雾气再次缓缓地聚合起来。先是一束束卷须，然后现出怪兽的轮廓。拼凑起来的兽腿、含着尖牙的大口、钩状和螯状的前肢……这些亡灵，他们以为已经彻底解决了。

The mist began coalescing throughout the square, first in thin tendrils and wisps, then in glowing outlines of monsters; things with conjoined legs, fang-filled jaws, and arms that ended in hooks or pincers. The spirits they thought they’d killed.

阴云重聚，阴灵复起。

Reforming, returning.

俗话说的狗屎运，到底是狗屎还是好运？

What was it folk said about plans and the contents of a privy?

“原来死掉的人还真难杀啊。”厄运小姐强忍着恐惧，不希望别人看出来。

“Turns out the dead are pretty hard to kill,” said Miss Fortune, trying not to let her fear show.

她太天真了，居然以为靠着一些小工具还有盲目的信仰就能跟亡灵正面较量。她原打算向比尔吉沃特的人证明，他们根本不需要普朗克。人的命运应该由自己把握。

She’d been naïve to think petty trinkets and blind faith were enough to face the spirits of the dead. She’d wanted to show the people of Bilgewater they didn’t need Gangplank, that they could forge their own destiny.

但现在她把自己害死了不说，还把这座城市推进了炼狱。

Instead, she was going to get herself killed and leave the city to be torn apart.

一个低沉的号角声扫过广场。紧接着又是一声。

A bass rumble rolled through the square. Then another.

雷声大作，随着风暴渐渐靠近。

Percussive thunder strikes, rising in a stalking storm.

不一会儿，雷声越来越响越来越密，仿佛是一个巨人挥着铁锤发狂地砸在铁砧上。地面跟着颤抖起来。

It grew to become pounding hammerblows upon an anvil. Faster and louder until the ground shook with its violence.

“天啊，那是什么东西啊？”雷文问。

“What in the nine deeps is that?” said Rafen.

“不知道。”厄运小姐话音刚落，黑雾中出现了一个骑士的轮廓。午夜的天幕映衬着他的影子。他骑在一匹比例怪异的战马背上，头盔的形状如同恶魔的脑袋。

“I don’t know,” said Miss Fortune as the outline of a spectral horseman in midnight plate emerged from the mist. He sat atop a strangely proportioned warhorse and his helm was worked in the form of a snarling demon.

“是个恐惧骑士。”厄运小姐说。

“A dread knight,” said Miss Fortune.

雷文猛地摇头，他的脸上已经毫无血色。

Rafen shook his head, his face drained of color.

“才不是。”他绝望地说，“是战争之影……”

“That’s no knight,” he said. “That’s the Shadow of War…”

#3

令人僵硬的恐惧涟漪一般在众人中扩散开来。他是无可止步的杀戮，无法平息的怒火，无人幸存的噩梦。

Paralyzing terror rippled through Miss Fortune’s company at the mention of this eternal nightmare of killing rage and endless fury.

战争之影。

The Shadow of War.

他曾被人叫做赫卡里姆，但没人这是他的真名还是说书人的杜撰。只有蠢人才敢在炉火旁讲起有关他的黑暗传说，而且还得是在喝掉足够沉下一艘战舰的朗姆酒之后。

His name was once Hecarim, but no one knew if that were true or some ancient taleteller’s invention. Only fools dared recite his dark legend around the hearthfire, and even then only after enough rum to sink a Noxian war-barque.

战争之影已经从雾气中完全显现出来，厄运小姐这才发现，他不只是骑在马上这么简单。深寒的恐惧像裹尸布一样缠上了她的心口：也许赫卡里姆曾经是个骑士，但现在骑手和他的坐骑已经合二为一，变成了一头只为毁灭而生的参天巨兽。

As the Shadow of War emerged further from the mist, Miss Fortune saw he was no mere horseman. Cold dread settled upon her like a shroud at the sight of the monstrous creature.

“我们被他们包围了。”有人小声地说。

Perhaps Hecarim had once been a knight, man and horse separate entities. But rider and mount were now one, a single, towering behemoth whose only purpose was destruction.

厄运小姐硬着头皮把视线从披坚执锐的半人马身上挪开，发现一大群鬼骑士靠上前来。他们的身上亮着苍绿色的半透明火光，手持泛着黑气的长矛和刀剑。赫卡里姆挺起一柄带钩的阔刃大戟，杀气腾腾的刀锋上迸出惨绿的火焰。

“They’re all around us,” said a voice.

“你知道哪里有逃生的密道吗？”雷文问。

Miss Fortune risked looking away from the armored centaur to see a whole host of ghostly knights, their outlines lambent with pellucid green radiance. They leveled lances or drew swords of dark radiance. Hecarim swept out a hooked and terrible glaive, its killing edge erupting with green fire.

“不。”厄运小姐回答。“我要杀了那个杂种。”

“You know any secret ways out of here?” asked Rafen.

“杀了战争之影？”

“No,” said Miss Fortune. “I want to fight that bastard.”

厄运小姐刚要开口，却看到一个头戴兜帽的身影从一间米店的屋顶上跳进了广场。他优雅地落在地上，陈旧的皮风衣在他身后翼展开来。他握着一对手枪，黄铜颜色的金属箍着几块像是刻石似的东西。厄运小姐从来没在母亲的制枪台上见过类似的武器。

“You want to fight the Shadow of War?”

突然间，广场被双枪狂射而出的电光照亮了。刺眼的光芒让冥渊号的爆炸也相形失色。男人旋身的动作快如鞭击，瞄准和射击之间几乎没有任何停顿。电光所至，雾气便燃烧起来，亡魂纷纷在尖叫中散于无形。

Before Miss Fortune could answer, a hooded figure leapt from the rooftop of a grain store and dropped into the square. He landed gracefully, a storm coat of worn leather splayed behind him. He carried two pistols, but they were like no weapons Miss Fortune had ever seen on her mother’s gun-table; bronzed metalwork braced around hunks of what looked like carved stone.

黑雾卷上半空，挟着赫卡里姆和他的部下离去了。厄运小姐明白这不过是稍作喘息而已。

Light filled the square as he loosed searing bolts from each pistol in a fusillade that put the destruction of the Dead Pool to shame. The man turned in a tight spiral, marking targets and picking them off with whip-fast motion. The mist burned where his bolts struck, and the ghostly wraiths screeched as they were consumed.

男人将手枪顺进枪套，转过头来看着厄运小姐。他掀起兜帽，露出一张英气勃发的脸庞，还有一对漾着愁苦的眼睛。

The mist withdrew from Cutpurse Square, taking Hecarim and the death knights with it. Something told Miss Fortune this was but a temporary respite.

“关于阴影，”他说，“只要光亮足够，他们就会散去。”

The man holstered his pistols and turned to look at Miss Fortune, throwing back his hood to reveal darkly handsome features with haunted eyes.

“The thing about shadows,” he said. “Bring enough light and they disappear.”

奥拉夫对这个结局很不满意。

Olaf was not happy with this doom.

他希望后人传颂的是他跟海魁虫的惊天大战，而不是他狼狈摔死的过程。

He hoped men would speak of his epic battle with the Krakenwyrm, not this ignoble fall to his death.

他希望有人刚刚看到了他冲向怪兽的那个瞬间。

He hoped someone might have seen him charge the sea beast.

他祈祷着，哪怕只有一个人看到他借着海怪的触手升到高空，然后在他被像一袋垃圾那样扔远之前就跑掉。

He prayed at least one observer had seen him lifted high into the air by its ghostly tentacle, then fled before seeing him hurled away like an unworthy morsel.

奥拉夫砸穿了悬崖上某个建筑的屋顶。好像是个船舱？他的速度太快，根本来不及思考。碎裂的木板和泥土跟着他大头朝下地撞进屋子里。他只看到几张惊慌失措的脸一闪而过。

Olaf crashed down through the roof of a building bolted to the side of the cliff. Maybe it was a ship’s hull? He fell too fast to make it out. Crashing timbers and earthenware tumbled with him in his headlong plunge through the building. He glimpsed astonished, shouting faces flash past him.

奥拉夫穿过了地板，一根横梁拦胸撞了他一下，差点儿就咽气了。接着，一块凸起的岩石把他弹进一扇窗子里，一头捅破地板直直掉下去。

Olaf smashed through a floor. A support beam drove the wind from him as he tumbled down Bilgewater’s cliffs. He bounced from an outcrop of rock and went headfirst through an open window, crashing out again through yet another floor.

耳边掠过愤怒的咒骂声。

Angry curses followed him down.

奥拉夫掉进了绳索、滑轮和三角旗组成的丛林里。他手忙脚乱地挥着斧子，一路翻滚下落。他最后裹进了一面船帆里。命运正狠狠地嘲弄着他。

He spun out into a trailing forest of ropes and pulleys, flags and pennants. He thrashed as he fell, tangling his limbs and weapon. Fate was mocking him, wrapping him in a folded shroud of canvas sailcloth.

“不，该死的！”他绝望地大吼。“不！！！！！！”

“Not like this, damn it!” he roared. “Not like this!”

“你是谁？能不能告诉我，从哪里可以搞来那样的手枪？”厄运小姐向来人伸出手致意。

“Who are you and where can I get a pair of guns like those?” said Miss Fortune, offering her hand to the new arrival.

“我叫卢锡安。”他谨慎地握住了她的手。

“My name is Lucian,” he said, warily taking her hand.

“真心高兴认识你，朋友。”雷文拍拍他的肩，仿佛两人是相识多年的水手。厄运小姐发觉，雷文的亲切举动让卢锡安极不舒服，似乎他已经忘记如何跟别人相处了。

“Damn glad to know you, friend,” said Rafen, clapping him on the back as if they were old shipmates. Miss Fortune saw Rafen’s familiarity made Lucian acutely uncomfortable, like he’d forgotten how to be around others.

他的眼睛来回扫视着广场的边缘，手指一直在手枪柄上弹动。

His eyes scanned the edges of the square, his fingers dancing on the grips of his pistols.

“欢迎你的到来，卢锡安。”厄运小姐说。

“You’re a welcome sight, Lucian,” said Miss Fortune.

“我们该走了。战争之影会回来的。”

“We should move.” he said. “The Shadow of War will return.”

“他说的对。”雷文近乎恳求地看着厄运小姐。“见好就收，回吧。”

“He’s right,” said Rafen, giving her an imploring look. “It’s time to get inside, batten down the hatches.”

“不行。我们来是为了战斗。”

“No. We came out to fight.”

“莎拉，我明白。我们打下了比尔吉沃特，所以你想守住它。你想让大家看到你比普朗克更强。你已经做到了。但是，普朗克也没去黑雾里跟亡灵打仗啊。任何人，只要他们胆敢伸头看一眼——去他的，不用看都知道那些东西的厉害。你还想要什么呢？”

“Look, I get it, Sarah. We won Bilgewater and you need to fight to hold onto it, to show everyone you’re better than Gangplank. Well, you’ve done that. We went out into the Black Mist and we fought the dead. That’s more than he ever did. Anyone who risks lookin’ out a window is gonna know that. Hell, even the ones who ain’t looking will hear about it. What more do you want?”

“为比尔吉沃特而战。”

“To fight for Bilgewater.”

“而战还是而死？我百分之百赞成前者。这些人跟着你闯过了地狱，而现在，该让他们回到人间了。”

“There’s fighting for Bilgewater and then there’s dying for Bilgewater,” said Rafen. “I’m all up for the first, not so much the second. These men and women followed you down into hell, but now it’s time to climb back out.”

厄运小姐静静地看着手下的战士们。他们一个个衣衫褴褛，目露凶光。这些人可以为了几个子就把自己的老娘给卖了，但他们一直追随着她，毫无怨言地出生入死。与黑雾搏斗应该是他们这辈子最勇猛的事迹，而她不能以复仇的名义把他们送上死路。

Miss Fortune faced her company of fighters, every ragged, cutthroat one of them. None of them could be trusted not to sell their own mothers for a shiny trinket, but they’d done everything and more she’d asked of them. Venturing out into the Black Mist was just about the bravest thing any of them had ever done and she couldn’t repay that by leading them to their deaths for the sake of her vengeance.

“你是对的。”她呼出一口气，“我们回去吧。”

“You’re right,” she said, taking a breath. “We’re done here.”

“那么，愿好运追随着你。”卢锡安转过身去，又抽出了那对奇怪的手枪。

“Then may fortune follow you,” said Lucian, turning away and drawing his strange pistols once again.

“等一下，跟我们走吧。”厄运小姐说。

“Wait,” said Miss Fortune. “Come with us.”

卢锡安摇摇头：“不必了。那片雾里有一个幽灵在等着我。他们叫他魂锁典狱长，锤石。我要送他一死。”

Lucian shook his head. “No, there is a mist wraith I need to destroy. The one they call Thresh, the Chain Warden. I owe him a death.”

卢锡安的眼角皱了起来。厄运小姐认得那种表情——那是自从母亲死后，她自己脸上一直挂着的表情。

Miss Fortune saw the lines around Lucian’s eyes deepen and recognized the expression she’d worn ever since her mother’s murder.

“他杀了你的人，对吗？”

“He took someone from you, didn’t he?” she said.

卢锡安缓缓点头，一言不发。他的沉默比任何话语都更明了。

Lucian nodded slowly, and said no more, but his very silence spoke volumes.

“看起来你跟亡灵打过不止一架了。但如果就你自己的话，我保你活不过今晚。也许对你来说是求仁得仁，但那个叫锤石的所杀的人，不会希望你死在这里的。”

“This clearly isn’t your first tussle with the dead,” she said, “but you won’t survive the night if you stay out here alone. I’m guessing that might not mean much to you, but whoever this Thresh took from you, they wouldn’t want you to die here.”

卢锡安的眼睛轻轻地垂了下来。她注意到他脖子上挂着一个银色的小盒。不知是她的幻觉，还是雾气作祟，挂盒在月光下莹莹发光。

Lucian’s eyes flicked downwards, and Miss Fortune saw a silver locket just visible round his neck. Was it her imagination or a trick of the mist that made it shimmer in the moonlight?

“跟我们走吧。找个安全的地方休整一下，明早你再出发。”

“Come with us,” said Miss Fortune. “Find somewhere safe till morning and you’ll live to do it again.”

“安全？这城里还有安全的地方吗？”卢锡安问。

“Safe? Where is safe in this city?” said Lucian.

“我恰好知道一个地方。”厄运小姐说。

“I think I might know a place,” said Miss Fortune.

他们离开了扒手广场，朝着西边的蟒桥前进，在半路上见到了那个弗雷尔卓德人。他包在一块帆布里，吊在一根歪脖子桅杆上，像一个裹着尸布的吊死鬼。但这具“尸体”却像离水的鱼一样不停扭动着。

They left Cutpurse Square and were traveling west up towards the Serpent Bridge when they found the Freljordian. He hung from a crooked spar like a shrouded corpse on a gibbet. Unlike most corpses, however, this one was thrashing like a landed fish.

他的身下一地狼藉，木头片子和碎石堆成了一座小山。厄运小姐不禁抬头往高处看去，想搞清楚这人究竟是从多高的地方掉下来的。

A splintered pile of debris lay scattered all around him, and Miss Fortune looked up to see how far he’d fallen through the cliffside dwellings.

反正很高就对了。而他居然还活着，简直就是奇迹。

A long way was the answer, and that he was still alive was nothing short of a miracle.

卢锡安把手枪平举在眼前，厄运小姐却摇头制止了他。

Lucian leveled his pistols, but she shook her head.

“别。这人还活着。”

“No, this one’s actually on the right side of the grave.”

布包里传出模模糊糊的叫声，带着浓浓的弗雷尔卓德口音，仔细一听全是极其不堪的脏话——不堪得任何人一说出口就要被痛殴。

Muffled cries came from within the shroud, curses that would get a man beaten to death in a host of different lands, shouted in a thick, Freljordian accent.

她将佩剑刺进帆布，然后竖着向下划开一道口子。就像是给一条海豹接生似的，一个大胡子滚到了卵石地面上，全身都是鱼内脏的恶臭。

She placed the tip of her sword against the canvas and sliced downwards. Like a newborn sea-calf pulled from a ruptured birth-sac, a hugely bearded man spilled onto the cobbles. The reek of fish guts and offal clung to him.

他艰难地爬起来，同时还胡乱挥着手里的斧头。斧刃像钻石一样反射出光亮。

He climbed unsteadily to his feet, brandishing an axe with a blade like a shard of diamond ice.

“屠宰码头怎么走？”他像醉鬼一样站不稳脚跟，嚷嚷着问。他摔得鼻青脸肿，脑袋上伤痕累累，困惑地打量着四周。

“Which way to the Slaughter Docks?” he said, weaving like a drunk. He looked around, confused, his head a mass of lumps and bruises.

“我原本建议你闻着气味走，但我很怀疑你现在还能不能嗅到别的味儿。”厄运小姐说。

“Ordinarily I’d tell you to follow your nose,” said Miss Fortune, “but I’d be amazed if you’ve any sense of smell left.”

“我要那条海魁虫千刀万剐！我要送它一死！”大胡子叫起来。

“I’ll kill that Krakenwyrm ten times over if I have to,” said the man. “I owe it a death.”

“要送死的人今晚还真多啊。”厄运小姐叹道。

“Lot of that going around tonight,” said Miss Fortune.

大胡子说他叫奥拉夫，一名北方冰后麾下的战士。在脑震荡好转之后，他表明自己愿意与厄运小姐同行，直到他把黑雾中最危险的那头怪兽砍死为止。

The Freljordian named himself Olaf, a warrior of the rightful mistress of the ice, and, after shaking off his concussion, declared his intention to join them until he could fight the most dangerous spirit within the Black Mist.

“你想死吗？”卢锡安问。

“Do you want to die?” Lucian asked him.

“那还用问？”奥拉夫不假思索地说，仿佛这个问题已经达到了愚蠢的巅峰。“要的就是死成传奇！”

“Of course,” said Olaf, as though the very question was the height of foolishness. “I seek an ending worthy of legend.”

厄运小姐觉得，只要这个疯子知道自己的斧头该往哪边砍，她是很欢迎的。至于他一心求死的美梦，就随他去吧。

Miss Fortune left the madman to his dreams of death. So long as he swung that axe in the right direction, he was welcome to join them as they pushed onwards.

雾气涌来三回，每一次都带走了一个倒霉的灵魂。怨念的厉笑仿佛生锈的刀片刮在磨石上，回荡在建筑之间。成排的食腐鸟聚在房顶上嘎嘎乱叫，想在月亮还没下山前饱餐一顿鲜肉。黑暗中有一些幽幽的光点，像是沼泽里引人上当的鬼火。

Three times the mist closed in on them, and each time it took an unlucky soul from their company. Spiteful laughter echoed from the sides of buildings, the sound of a whetstone over rusted steel. Ranks of carrion birds cawed from rooftops in anticipation of a flesh banquet by the light of the moon. Welcoming lights danced in the darkness of the mist, like beguiling corpse-candles over sucking marshland.

“别看他们。”卢锡安说。

“Don’t look at them,” warned Lucian.

但他的警告还是晚了一点。一对夫妇循着只有他们自己才能看见的光源跳下了悬崖。厄运小姐并不知道他们的名字，只知道他们的儿子不到一年前死于海瘟。

His warning came too late for one man and his wife. Miss Fortune didn’t know their names, but knew they had lost a son to ocean-ague less than a year ago. They walked from the cliffs following a vision in the lights only they could see.

另一个男的把手上的铁钩剜进了自己的喉咙，他的同伴完全来不及阻止。还有一个人干脆在雾气里消失得一干二净。

Another man took his hooked hand to his throat before his friends could stop him. Another simply vanished into the mist without anyone seeing him go.

等他们终于抵达蟒桥的时候，人数已经不足一打了。厄运小姐心里很复杂，她告诉过他们不要跟来的。但另一方面，如果他们只想安稳生活，大可以躲在门窗禁闭的屋子里，或是藏在稀奇古怪的浮雕后，捏着胡子女士的护身符和一切保佑心安的玩意儿放肆祈祷。

By the time they reached Serpent Bridge, their company numbered less than a dozen. Miss Fortune couldn’t feel sorry for them, she’d told them not to come with her. If they’d wanted to live forever, they should be shuttered behind closed doors and protective carvings, clutching spiral talismans of the Bearded Lady and praying to whatever gave them solace.

可在蚀魂夜，那样也并不安全。

But against the Harrowing, even that was no guarantee of safety.

他们一路过来，见到了无数被撞开的房屋。窗格粉碎，大门摇摇欲坠地吊在皮绳上。厄运小姐只盯着前方，尽量不去注意那些冰冷尸体怨憎的眼神，以及残留的恐惧。

They’d passed countless homes smashed open with splintered shutters and doors hanging limply from leather hinges. Miss Fortune kept her eyes fixed forward, but it was impossible not to feel the accusing gazes from the frozen faces within or sense the terror of their last moments.

经过一户人家门前时，他们看见里面只剩下尸体冷硬的一家老小。温馨的小屋如今变成了一座座藏骨所。“黑雾会得到报应的。”雷文说。

“The Black Mist will have its due,” said Rafen as they passed yet another charnel house, the families within cold and dead.

她看着这些逆来顺受的死者，心中莫名地愤怒。但是那又有什么用呢？归根结底，她也只能同意他的说法。

She wanted to be angry at such acceptance of horror, but what good would that do? After all, he was right.

桥对面有一座建筑的轮廓吸引了她的注意力。建筑端坐在悬崖上一个火山口状的坑里，看起来就像是山顶被巨型海兽生生咬下了一块。跟比尔吉沃特的多数房屋一样，建筑的材料都取自海洋。墙壁用的是远方大陆漂来的板材，窗框则来自自海底打捞上来的沉船木料。整座建筑从上到下没有一处直线，显得非常奇异。那些诡谲的弧线令它看起来似乎无时不在运动，仿佛某一天它就会连根拔起，跑去另外的地方落脚。

Instead, she focused on the hazed outline of the structure across the bridge. It sat in the center of a gouged crater in the cliff, as if some mighty sea creature had taken a vast bite from the rock. Like most places in Bilgewater it was constructed from the ocean’s leavings. Its walls were driftwood and branches from faraway lands, its windows the scavenged remains of ships swept up from the seabed. It had a peculiar quality of possessing not a single straight line anywhere in its construction. The curious angles gave it a sense of being somehow in motion, as if it might one day choose another place to set down temporary roots.

弯曲的尖顶伸向空中，就是像是独角鲸的长牙。顶端有一个螺旋形的标志，与厄运小姐脖子上的挂饰一模一样。标志周围环着一圈微光，所照之处黑暗便退到一侧。

Its spire was likewise crooked, fluted like the horn of a narwhal and topped with the same spiral symbol Miss Fortune wore around her neck. A shimmering light wreathed the icon, and where it shone the darkness was held in abeyance.

“那是什么地方？”卢锡安问。

“What is that place?” asked Lucian.

“胡子女士的神庙，娜伽卡波洛丝的宫邸。”

“The Temple of the Bearded Lady,” she said. “The House of Nagakabouros.”

“安全吗？”

“Is it safe?”

“好过留在外面。”

“It’s better than staying out here.”

卢锡安点点头，与大家一起走上蟒桥。与桥头的庙宇类似，蟒桥名符其实地蜿蜒曲折。桥面并不对称，两侧的栏杆造型也像是推挤向前的波浪。

Lucian nodded and they set off across the winding length of the bridge. Like the temple it approached, the bridge was an uneven thing, its cobbles undulant like something alive.

雷文停在破败的扶手边向下看去。

Rafen paused at the crumbling parapet and looked down.

“一年比一年高。”他说。

“Getting higher every year,” he said.

厄运小姐不太情愿地走过去，跟他一起张望。

Reluctantly, Miss Fortune joined him and looked over the edge.

鼠镇还有几处码头已经彻底没在黑雾里了，平日密如蛛网的装货平台半点都看不见。雾气的触须渗进了城中腹地，比尔吉沃特正在窒息。惨叫断断续续地传来，每一声都意味着一条生命的终结，也意味着死者的大军又多了一个新成员。

The docks and Rat Town were smothered beneath the Black Mist, and even the web of gun’dolas was barely visible. Bilgewater was choking in the grip of the mist, its tendrils seeping ever deeper into the city. Screams of terror drifted upwards, each one a life ended and a fresh soul for the legion of the dead.

雷文耸肩说道：“过不了几年，比尔吉沃特就全归黑雾了。”

Rafen shrugged. “A few years from now there won’t be anywhere in Bilgewater beyond its reach.”

“几年里可以发生很多事情。”厄运小姐说。

“A lot can happen in a few years,” said Miss Fortune.

“这雾每年都有？”奥拉夫一脚蹬在低矮的栏杆上，完全不在乎桥下令人眩晕的峭壁。

“This happens every year?” asked Olaf, one foot perched on the parapet with a reckless disregard for the dizzying drop.

她点了点头。

Miss Fortune nodded.

“完美！”弗雷尔卓德人大叫。“如果老天今晚不收我，下次黑雾时我还要回来。”

“Excellent,” said the Freljordian. “If I am fated not to die this night, I will return here when the Black Mist rises again.”

“回来办自己的葬礼。”雷文回了一句。

“It’s your funeral,” replied Rafen.

“谢谢！”奥拉夫的大手掴在雷文后背，差点儿把他拍飞出桥面。突然，弗雷尔卓德人的眼眶瞪得滚圆：浓雾中升起一簇鬼影般的触手，伸展之后猛力拍下，砸毁了一大片鼠镇的民居。

“Thank you,” said Olaf, slapping an enormous palm on Rafen’s back, almost knocking him from the bridge. The Freljordian’s eyes widened as a host of ghostly tentacles rose from the mist, uncoiling to smash down on the dwellings of Rat Town.

“怪兽！！”他狂叫起来。

“The beast!” he cried.

奥拉夫双脚蹦到扶手上，身子一弓就弹了出去——没人来得及阻止。

And before anyone could stop him, he vaulted onto the parapet and hurled himself from the edge.

“真是疯子。”雷文看着奥拉夫的身影越来越小，最后沉进了浓雾。

“Mad bastard,” said Rafen as Olaf’s dwindling form vanished into the mist below.

“冰原人都很疯。不过他比我见过的都更过分。”厄运小姐说。

“All the ice-dwellers are mad,” said Miss Fortune. “But he was madder than most I’ve met.”

“带大家进去。”卢锡安突然说。

“Get everyone inside,” said Lucian.

她听出他声音里的焦急，不由得转过身去。卢锡安的面前是一个极高大的幽魂，裹在一身漆黑的法袍中，外面缠着带钩的锁链。幽魂的身体透出病恹恹的绿光，没有生气的手中提着一盏摇晃的灯笼。厄运小姐感到彻骨的恐惧，甚至比当年她看着母亲死去、面对凶手的枪手时还要恐惧。

She heard the urgency in his voice and turned to see him facing a towering figure in stitched black robes hung with hooked chains. Sickly green light wreathed the specter as it lifted a swaying lantern in one pallid hand. Fear touched Miss Fortune, fear like nothing she’d known since she’d watched her mother die and stared down the barrel of the killer’s gun.

卢锡安拔出双枪。“锤石交给我。”

Lucian drew his pistols. “Thresh is mine.”

“交给你了。”她说完便转身离开。

“He’s all yours,” she said, and turned away.

她望向高处逐渐被阴影逼近的神庙，却被惊得喘不过气来。赫卡里姆和他的手下就站在山脊上。

Her gaze was drawn upwards as shadows closed around the temple. The breath caught in her throat as she saw Hecarim and his death knights at the crater’s ridge.

战争之影举起了燃烧的长戟。鬼骑士们催动来自地狱的战马，以活人根本不可能的速度奔下来——这是亡灵骑手的冲锋。

The Shadow of War raised his fiery glaive and the ghostly horsemen urged their hell-steeds downward. No mortal rider could make that descent, but these were riders of death.

“跑！”厄运小姐大叫。

“Run!” shouted Miss Fortune.

#4

桥头盘在一团恶心的绿光里。魂锁典狱长枯朽的皮肤罩在破烂的蒙头斗篷下，手里的灯笼隐隐照出他身上仍然残留的皮肉。荒芜破败，毫无情感，却又带着一股虐待狂的狂热气息。

The end of the bridge thickened with noxious green light. The Chain Warden hid his corpse features beneath a rotted hood, but the light of his lantern hinted at the remains of ravaged flesh, gaunt and drained of all emotion, save sadistic relish.

跟同类一样，他轻缓地飘起来，窸窣的法衣内传出饱受痛苦的呻吟。锤石将头抬高了半寸，卢锡安便看到他露出过分尖利的牙齿，阴森地咧开期待般的笑容。

He moved softly, like all his kind. Pained moans sighed from his robes as he moved. Thresh lifted his head a fraction, and Lucian saw the glint of too-sharp teeth widen in a grin of anticipation.

“凡人。”锤石的话音囫囵不清，仿佛在嘴里正咂摸着一块鲜肉。

“Mortal,” said Thresh, rolling the word around his mouth like a sweetmeat.

卢锡安半跪在地，开始复述净化的咒文。为了接下来的战斗，他必须心坚如铁。这一刻他已经在脑海中假设了千万次，而当锤石真正到来时，他仍感到口里发干，汗水打湿了手心。

Lucian knelt, reciting the mantra of clarity to steel his soul for the battle to come. He had prepared for this moment a thousand times, and now that it was here, his mouth was dry, his palms slick with sweat.

“你杀了赛娜。”他站了起来，昂起头说。“我在这世上唯一的亲人。”

“You murdered Senna,” he said, standing and lifting his head. “The only person I had left in the world.”

“赛娜……？”锤石的喉头咕咯怪响，像是有人在水中说话，又像是死囚在绞索捆紧时的呼号。

“Senna...?” said Thresh, the sound wet and gurgling, as though squeezed from a throat once crushed by a hangman’s noose.

“我的妻子。”卢锡安知道自己不该说话，因为每多说一个词都会让锤石更容易打败自己。悲痛的泪水涌进他的眼睛，所有的雄心和理智都被冲走了。他拉起项链上的挂盒，抠开盖子，举在面前，要锤石看清楚他所失去的人。

“My wife,” said Lucian, knowing he should not speak, that every word was a weapon the wraith would turn against him. Tears blurred his vision as grief washed away every preparation and every shred of logic. He lifted the silver locket from around his neck and snapped it open, needing the wraith to understand the depth of all he had lost.

锤石龇着青光闪烁的针牙，伸出枯黄的指甲敲了敲灯笼罩。

Thresh grinned, his needle teeth glinting as he tapped the glass of the lantern with a yellowed nail.

“我记得她。一个鲜活的灵魂，远未荒芜冰冷。准备经受折磨的她，却满怀新生渴望，在她心里开放。新鲜的，崭新的，春天的花朵。让人随意摘取，毁掉所有的美梦。”

“I remember her,” he said. “A vital soul. Not yet barren and cold. Ripe for torment. Hope for a new life. It bloomed in her, you know. Fresh, new, like a spring flower. All too easy to pluck and ruin those with dreams.”

卢锡安端起双枪。

Lucian lifted his pistols.

“你要是记得她，想必也会记得这个。”

“If you remember her, then you will remember these,” he said.

破烂斗篷下的森森利齿，头一次结巴起来。

The toothed grin never faltered beneath the ragged cowl.

“光的武器。”

“The weapons of light,” he said.

“光给黑暗以苦痛。”卢锡安一字一句地说，仿佛将所有仇恨都要挤进手中的武器。

“And light is ever the bane of darkness,” said Lucian, channeling every scrap of hatred into his relic pistols.

“稍等……”锤石还没说完，但卢锡安已经不想再等了。

“Wait,” said Thresh, but Lucian was done waiting.

他没有瞄准便扣下了一对扳机。

He loosed a pair of blinding shots.

爆燃的纯净之火瞬间吞没了魂锁典狱长，他的惨叫声在卢锡安听来不啻仙乐。

A conflagration of purifying fire engulfed the Chain Warden and his howls were music to Lucian’s ears.

但是，惨叫突然变成了汩汩响动的大笑。

Then the howls changed to gurgling laughter.

锤石周身有一圈暗淡的光轮，将火焰完全隔绝在外面，自己毫发无损。他一边笑着，抽动灯笼收起了光轮。

A nimbus of dark light faded around Thresh, drawn back into his lantern and leaving him utterly untouched by the fire.

卢锡安再次开枪，枪火骤雨般飞射出去。每一枪都直取要害，却没一枪正中目标。灯笼外的一圈黑光将所有攻击都消解于无形。

Lucian fired again, a storm of radiant bolts, each perfectly aimed, but every one wasted. Each shot dissipated harmlessly against a shimmering haze of dark energy from the lantern.

“是的，我记得那武器。我从她的心中通晓它们的秘密。”锤石说。

“Yes, I remember those weapons,” said the wraith. “I tore their secrets from her mind.”

卢锡安僵住了。

Lucian froze.

“你说什么？”

“What did you just say?”

锤石狂笑，像是锉刀剐蹭的噪音。

Thresh laughed, a wheezing, consumptive rasp.

“你竟不知道？重生教团对我如此了解，你却从未怀疑过吗？”

“You don’t know? After all the reborn order learned of me, you never once suspected?”

卢锡安感到腹中有一坨冰冷的恐惧。他从来没感受过的恐怖快要把他逼疯了。

Lucian felt cold dread settle in his belly. A horror he had never acknowledged for fear he would go insane.

“她还没死。”锤石扬起灯笼说。

“She did not die,” continued Thresh, holding up his lantern.

卢锡安看到那里面有无数灵魂正受尽煎熬地翻滚着。

Lucian saw tortured spirits twisting in its depths.

锤石微笑着说：“我剥下她的灵魂，保存在此。”

Thresh grinned. “I ripped her soul out and kept it.”

“不会……我看到她死了。”

“No...” said Lucian. “I saw her die.”

“她在我的灯笼里，一直尖叫。”锤石的嘴里挤出一个个字，飘近卢锡安跟前。“她无时不在受着甜蜜的折磨。来，你能听到她吧？”

“She screams still inside my lantern,” said Thresh, drifting closer with every choked-out word. “Her every moment of existence is sweet agony. Listen...can you hear her?”

“不。”卢锡安呜呜啜泣着，赛娜留给他的手枪掉在了蟒桥的地面上。

“No,” sobbed Lucian, his relic pistols falling to the stones of the bridge.

锤石绕着他转圈，皮带间的锁链蛇行而出，渐渐缠紧了卢锡安的身体。弯钩划破他的风衣，向温暖的血肉探去。

Thresh circled him, chains snaking from his leather belt and slithering over Lucian’s body. The hooks cut into his storm coat, seeking the soft flesh beneath.

“憧憬是她的软肋。爱，则是灭顶之灾。”

“Hope was her weakness. Love her undoing.”

卢锡安抬起头，看着锤石毁废的脸。

Lucian looked up into Thresh’s ravaged features.

一双空空如也的眼眶，像是通往虚无的黑洞。

His eyes were voids, dark holes into emptiness.

无论锤石生前曾经历过什么，都不再有半点残留——没有同情、没有仁慈、更没有人性。

Whatever Thresh had been in life, nothing now remained. No compassion, no mercy and no humanity.

“凡人，死亡和苦难至大。”魂锁典狱长将手伸向卢锡安的脖子。“无论逃往何方，死亡不变。但在那之前，你还要过我的手。”

“All is death and suffering, mortal,” said the Chain Warden, reaching for Lucian’s neck. “No matter where you run, your only true legacy is death. But before then, there is me.”

厄运小姐拼命跑向神庙，沉重的呼吸捶打着她的喉咙。肺脏已经快要炸开，血管里粘稠而冰冷。两名亡魂的领主同时出现在这里，引得令人萎靡的雾气盘旋直上，沿着山壁向神庙聚集过去。身后耀眼的亮光闪个不停，但她没有回头。马蹄如雷，她抬头向黑暗高处闪烁的火星看去。

The breath hammered in Miss Fortune’s throat as she ran for the temple. Her lungs fought to draw breath, and her veins felt sluggish with ice. Coils of enervating mist reached up to the rock of the temple, drawn by the presence of the two lords of the unliving. Brilliant flashes of light flared behind her, but she didn’t look back. She heard the thunder of hoof beats on rock, seeing sparks above them in the darkness.

她想象着有人在她的颈后冰冷地呼吸，然后两块肩胛骨中间的位置传来火烧的痛感。她觉得自己马上就会看到一把虚影的长枪穿出胸口了。

She imagined the breath of ghostly steeds on her neck.

奇怪，他们明明是鬼魂，怎么会弄出火星来呢？

The space between her shoulder blades burned hot where she expected the stabbing thrust of a spectral lance.

这个突如其来的怪念头惹得她自己也笑出声来，直到她趴在神庙涡形的木门上猛敲时还止不住。雷文和她溃不成军的手下已经在门前又踢又打有一阵了。

Wait, how can they make sparks when they’re ghosts?

“胡子女士在下，让我们进去！”雷文扯着嗓子喊，厄运小姐也跟着他一起叫。雷文伸手摸索着门框，说：“门锁死了。”

The absurdity of the thought made her laugh, and she was still laughing as she slammed into the warped timber doors of the temple. Rafen and her ragged band were already there, hammering fists and palms against the door.

“看的出来。”她喘着粗气，把俄洛伊给她的挂饰扯下来放在掌心，然后平贴在门上死死摁住。

“In the name of the Bearded Lady, let us in!” he yelled.

“俄洛伊！”她高声说，“我准备好踩住那条狗屁鳗鱼的脖子了！快给我打开这扇烂门！”

He looked up as Miss Fortune joined him.

“鳗鱼？什么玩意儿？你在说什么呢？”雷文莫名地问。

“The doors are shut,” he said.

“不重要。”啪地一声，她把挂饰拍在门板上。“我猜是个比喻。”

“I noticed,” she gasped, wrenching the pendant Illaoi had given her. She placed her palm flat on door, with the coral pressed hard against the wood.

门突然向外推开了，就好像从来没闩上过。厄运小姐后退一步，等所有人进去之后，她才转回身看了一眼。

“Illaoi!” she shouted. “I’m ready to stamp on that damn eel’s neck. Now open the bloody door!”

赫卡里姆暴跳前冲，着火的刀锋正对着她的脑袋劈下来。

“Eel?” said Rafen. “What eel? What are you talking about?”

厄运小姐重重地仰面摔倒。

“Never mind,” she snapped, battering her palm bloody against the wood. “I think it was a metaphor.”

俄洛伊站在门前，平举着白雾缭绕的石球护在门前。

The door swung outwards as if it had been unbarred the whole time. Miss Fortune stepped back to allow her fighters inside first, and finally turned around.

“此地不欢迎死者。”她说。

Hecarim reared up and swung his fiery glaive for her skull.

雷文和其他人迅速拉上大门，将一根老橡木插进两侧锈迹斑斑的门鼻儿里。外面有什么东西撞到门上。门板上迸出裂纹，木头碎片七零八落。

A hand grasped her collar and hauled her backward. The tip of the weapon sliced an inch from her throat.

厄运小姐躺在贝壳点缀的泥地上半天没有动弹。

She fell hard on her backside.

俄洛伊经过她时说：“你可花了不少时间呢，姑娘。”

Illaoi stood in the doorway, holding her stone idol out before her like a shield. White mist clung to it like corposant.

厄运小姐奋力地爬起来。神庙里塞了至少两百号人。比尔吉沃特各式各样的居民都有，原住民、海盗、贸易商……全是跑海的人。除此之外，还有些旅客模样的人，也不知该说他们倒霉还是蠢，看来都是蚀魂夜要来之前还没起锚的。

“The dead are not welcome here,” she said.

“那扇门撑得住吗？”她问俄洛伊。

Rafen and the others hauled the door shut and dropped a heavy spar of seasoned oak into place on the rusted anchors to either side. A huge impact slammed into the door.

“能又或不能。”俄洛伊朝着神庙中心一个有许多触手的雕像走去。厄运小姐努力想看明白那到底什么，但她很快就被各种螺旋和曲线给看花了眼，最后只好放弃。

Wood split and splinters flew.

“那不算回答。”

Illaoi turned and walked past Miss Fortune, still sprawled on a mosaic floor of seashells and clay fragments.

“我只有这个回答。”俄洛伊说着，把石球放进了雕像上的一块凹陷，然后开始围着雕像转起圈来。她的一双拳头有节奏地在腿上和胸口来回捶打，在场的其他人也跟着她打转，捶胸顿足，还说着一种厄运小姐没听过的语言。

“You took your sweet time, girl,” she said as Miss Fortune climbed to her feet. The temple was filled with at least two hundred people, maybe more. She saw a wide cross section of Bilgewater’s denizens: its native population, pirates, traders and assorted sea-scum, together with travellers unlucky or unwise enough to seek a berth so close to the Harrowing.

“他们这是干什么？”

“Is that door going to hold?” she asked.

“将运动归还世界。”俄洛伊说。“但我们需要时间。”

“It will or it won’t,” said Illaoi, heading towards a many-tentacled statue at the centre of the temple. Miss Fortune tried to make sense of it, but gave up when her eye kept getting lost in the many spirals and looping curves.

“会有的。”厄运小姐向她担保。

“That’s not an answer.”

“It’s the only one I have,” said Illaoi, setting her idol in a concave depression in the statue. She began moving in a circle around the statue, beating a rhythmic pattern on her thighs and chest with her fists. The people in the temple joined her circling, beating palms against bare skin, stamping their feet and speaking in a language she didn’t understand.

“What are they doing?”

“Giving some motion back to the world,” said Illaoi. “But we will need time.”

“You’ll have it,” promised Miss Fortune.

卢锡安感觉钩子深深地咬进他的身体，比北方的寒冰更加彻骨，并且加倍地疼痛。魂锁典狱长的手钳住他的喉咙，皮肤在碰触之下仿佛烧伤似的疼。他感到力量正在迅速流失，心跳逐渐慢了下来。

Lucian felt the spectral hooks bite deep into his flesh, colder than northern ice and twice as painful. The Chain Warden’s hand closed on his throat and his skin burned at the wraith’s touch. He felt his strength drawn from him, the beat of his heart slow.

锤石一手将他举离地面，另一手高擎着灯笼准备收下他的灵魂。激烈搅动的幽光里传出阵阵悲啼，无数游魂的脸孔和双手抵在灯笼的内壁上清晰可见。

Thresh lifted him from the ground and held his lantern aloft, ready to receive his soul. The moaning lights within swirled in agitation, ghostly faces and hands pressing against the glass from within.

“暗影的猎手，长久以来，我在寻找你的灵魂。而唯有此刻，才是收取的最好时机。”

“Long I have sought your soul, shadow hunter,” said Thresh. “But only now is it ripe for the taking.”

卢锡安发觉自己的视野从外到内开始变灰，灵魂正从四肢百骸间慢慢抽离。他挣扎着想反抗，但是魂锁典狱长收割灵魂的手艺已经操练过无数次，不可能给他留下机会。

Lucian’s vision greyed at the edges, feeling his soul peel away from his bones. He fought to hold on, but the Chain Warden had been harvesting souls for countless lifetimes and knew his craft better than any.

“尽管挣扎。你的灵魂会因战斗而更强盛。”锤石的口气仿佛是在谈论一道美味。

“Struggle harder,” said Thresh with monstrous appetite. “Your soul burns brighter when you fight.”

卢锡安想要说话，但他发不出半点声音，只感觉到自己的灵魂随着微弱的呼吸涓涓而出。

Lucian tried to speak, but no words came out, just a soft stream of warm breath that carried his soul.

一把发光的镰刀悬在卢锡安头顶，浸透了亡魂的怨念。刀刃的光芒充满期待地闪烁着。

A glittering scythe floated in the air above Lucian, a murder-soaked reaper of souls. Its blade shivered with anticipation.

卢锡安……

Lucian...

一个声音，她的声音。

That voice. Her voice.

我的爱人……

My love...

锤石的镰刀转了一下，找到一个更好的角度。

The murder-edge of Thresh’s blade turned, angled to better part soul from flesh.

卢锡安从灯笼里看到一张面孔显现出来，他猛地抽了一口气。那张面孔，虽然在成千上万之中毫不起眼，但却是万千世界中唯一的关键。

Lucian drew back his breath as he saw a face resolve in the glass of the lantern. One among countless thousands, but one with more reason than any to push herself to the fore.

饱满的双唇，一双明亮的杏眼，祈求着他活下去。

Full lips, wide, almond shaped eyes, imploring him to live.

“赛娜……”卢锡安轻呼。

“Senna...” gasped Lucian.

让我做你的盾。

Let me be your shield.

一瞬间，他明白了她的意思。

He knew what she meant in a heartbeat.

正如当年他们并肩与暗影生物搏斗时那样，他感觉到赛娜与自己的灵魂紧紧相连。

The link between them was as strong as it had been when they hunted the creatures of shadow side by side.

他鼓起最后一丝力气，扯断了颈上的项链。月光下，银链微微发亮。

With the last of his strength, Lucian reached up and snapped the locket from around his neck. The chain glittered silver in the moonlight.

魂锁典狱长感觉到不对劲，他愤恨地嘶了一声。

The Chain Warden saw something was amiss and hissed in anger.

但卢锡安比他快。

Lucian was faster.

项链在他手里转了一圈，然后飞甩出去，缠在锤石提着灯笼的那只手上绕了几圈。不等锤石甩掉，卢锡安从风衣内侧抽出了那把银锥，狠命刺进了锤石的手腕。

He spun the chain like a slingshot, but instead of loosing a lead bullet, he lashed it around the arm holding the lantern. Before Thresh could shake it off, Lucian drew the silver awl from its sheath in his long coat and plunged it into the specter’s wrist.

魂锁典狱长戾叫一声——他已经数千年没有感觉过痛苦了。他丢下卢锡安，抱着手腕痛苦地抽搐着。灯笼中囚禁的亡魂突然间明白了该如何反击折磨他们的人。

The Chain Warden screeched in pain, a sensation he had likely not felt in millennia. He dropped Lucian and thrashed in agony as the myriad souls trapped in his lantern suddenly found a means to strike back at their tormentor.

卢锡安感到自己的灵魂再度嵌回了身体里。他大口大口地吞咽着口气，仿佛是溺水的人刚刚冲出水面。

Lucian felt his soul snap back into his body and drew in heaving gulps of air, like a drowning man breaking the surface.

快，我的爱人。他太强大……

Hurry, my love. He is too strong...

他的眼中变得一片澄明。卢锡安从地上抢起双枪，极快地瞥了赛娜一眼，然后深深地印在心底。

His sight returned, clearer than ever before. Lucian snatched his pistols from the ground. He caught the briefest glimpse of Senna’s face in the lantern and etched it on his heart.

他再也不会让她的脸在记忆里淡去了。

Never again would her face grow dim in his memories.

“锤石。”他叫了一声，两把手枪瞄准。

“Thresh,” he said, aiming his twin pistols.

魂锁典狱长抬起头，虚无的眼洞正燃起狂烈的怒火。本来到手的灵魂，如今却放肆地挑衅着自己。他紧盯住卢锡安，再次扬起了灯笼。但是不安分的亡魂却再也没有释出保护他的黑光。

The Chain Warden looked up, the voids of his eyes alight with outrage at the defiance of his captive souls. He held Lucian’s gaze and extended his lantern, but the rebellious souls had dispelled whatever protection it once offered.

一连串烈日般的光柱，完美命中。

Lucian fired a blistering series of perfect shots.

光芒洞穿了鬼气森森的法袍，他的灵体被无情地点燃，爆发出地狱般的高热。卢锡安一步步踏向锤石，双枪电光夺目。

They burned through the Chain Warden’s ghostly robes and ignited his spirit form in a searing inferno of light. Lucian marched towards Thresh, his twin weapons blazing.

魂锁典狱长痛苦地惨叫着，面对卢锡安无穷倾泻的火力不断退缩。他的灵体完全无法抵挡这对武器中来自远古的力量。

Shrieking in agony, the Chain Warden retreated from Lucian’s unending barrage, his wraithform now powerless to resist these weapons of ancient power.

“不必抗拒，死亡为你前来。如是我言，此时即为终点。”卢锡安静静地说。

“Death is here for you,” said Lucian. “Embrace it, safe in the knowledge I will ensure it is final.”

锤石哀嚎一声翻下了蟒桥，像一颗着火的流星坠向低处的城市。

Thresh gave one last howl before leaping from the bridge, falling like a burning comet to the city below.

卢锡安一直看着，直到黑雾完全将锤石吞没。

Lucian watched him fall until the Black Mist swallowed him.

他一下子垮坐在地上。

He slumped to his knees.

“谢谢你，我的爱。我的光。”他低声说。

“Thank you, my love,” said Lucian. “My light.”

神庙的墙壁在暴烈的冲击下晃个不停。黑雾从密封不严的板条与窗户缝隙里渗进屋子。亡灵们贪婪的爪子在木头上刮擦，门框发出令人揪心的吱嘎声。狂风砸在大小木板拼成的屋顶上，荡出来自远方的尖叫声。

The temple walls shook with the violence of the assault. Black mist oozed between ill-fitting planks and through cracks in the scavenged glass of the windows. The door shuddered in its frame. Grasping claws of mist tore at the wood. Screams echoed as a howling gale battered the mismatched timbers of the roof.

“那里！”厄运小姐指着靠墙而立的一座艾欧尼亚茶柜大喊。一群血红眼睛的雾灵正从破洞中探进来。

“Over there!” shouted Miss Fortune as a host of mist-creatures with burning red eyes poured through a broken section of wall that had once been a series of tea-chests from Ionia.

她大步跃进幽魂中间，感觉就像是裸身跳进了冰洞里。哪怕只是被轻轻扫到，她也感到热量被掠去了一部分。

She leapt into the midst of the wraiths. It felt like jumping naked into an ice hole cut in a glacier. Even the lightest touch of the dead leeched warmth and life.

珊瑚挂饰滚烫地贴着她的皮肤。

The coral pendant burned hot against her skin.

她挥起佩剑，砍中亡灵的时候手上传来了那种熟悉的实在感。她的火枪也许对付不了死者，但来自德玛西亚的利刃却能伤到它们。亡灵们嘶嘶怪叫着向后退开。

She slashed her looted sword through the creatures and felt the same bite she’d felt before. Her bullets might be useless against the dead, but this Demacian blade hurt them. They fell back from her, screeching and hissing.

死者也会恐惧吗？

Could the dead know fear?

看起来会。它们开始在剑光下四散逃窜。但她没有手软，连刺带斩地攻向亡灵。

It seemed they could, for they fled the sword’s glittering edge. She didn’t let them go, stabbing and slashing the mist wherever it poured in.

“就这样！跑！”她大吼。

“That’s it! Run!” she yelled.

一个小孩尖叫起来，厄运小姐回头看见雾气正朝他涌去。她一个滑步奔到他身边，一手抄起孩子抱在怀里。冰冻的爪子抓伤了她的背，厄运小姐瞬间感到四肢里灌满了冰水。

A child screamed and Miss Fortune sprinted over as the mist reached to claim him. She dived and snatched the boy in her arms before rolling to safety. Chill claws plunged into her back, and Miss Fortune gasped as numbing cold spread through her limbs.

她反手刺向身后，死灵惨嚎着消散。

She stabbed behind her and something dead howled.

一个躲在长椅背后的女人伸手接过了孩子。厄运小姐勉强站起来，但虚弱的感觉开始蔓延到全身。

A woman sheltering behind an overturned pew reached for the boy and Miss Fortune let him squirm to safety. She pushed herself to her feet, weakness spreading through her body like a raging infection.

枪声、刀剑声、亡灵的嚎叫、活人的惊呼……神庙中充斥着混乱。

Everywhere was gunfire and clashing steel, deathly howls and screams of terror.

“莎拉！”那是雷文的喊声。

“Sarah!” shouted Rafen.

她循声望去，粗壮的橡木门闩已经裂开，雷文和十几个男人手挽着手用脊背抵住大门，然而木门已经被顶得凹了进来。亡灵的利爪穿透了门板，碎片四处横飞。一个男人被抓住后心，绝望大叫着被扯进了门外的浓雾中。

She looked up to see the oaken locking bar securing the door split along its length. Rafen and a dozen men had their backs braced against the bludgeoning assault, but the doors were bulging inwards. Cracks spread and grasping hands of mist reached inside. A man was snatched backwards and his piteous screams were abruptly cut off as he vanished into the mist.

另一个人伸出手去拉他，结果整条手臂被扯了下来。

Another had his arm ripped off as he reached to help him.

雷文旋身将匕首全力捅进裂缝，而亡灵立刻缴走了那把没用的武器。

Rafen spun and rammed his dagger through the gap.

一个鬼影挤进四分五裂的木门，爪子抓进雷文的胸口。厄运小姐的副官痛苦地大吼，脸上的血色迅速消退下去。

Clawed hands tore the useless weapon from his hand.

她跌跌撞撞地跑向她，用尽了全身的力气。佩剑切断了亡灵的臂膀，将它完全驱散。雷文摔倒在她怀里，两人一起跌坐在神庙的地上。

A howling body pushed itself in through the disintegrating door and plunged its hands into Rafen’s chest. Her second in command roared in pain, his face draining of color.

雷文气若游丝，而厄运小姐自己也好不到哪去。

She staggered over to him, her strength all but gone. Her blade hacked through spectral arms, and the creature shrieked as it vanished. Rafen fell into her, and they collapsed back into the nave together.

“别死在我这儿，雷文！”她喘息着说。

Rafen gasped for breath, his features as slack as hers.

“死灵还杀不了我。王八蛋只是摸了我一下而已。”雷文咕哝着说。

“Don’t you die on me, Rafen!” she wheezed.

头顶传来玻璃破碎的声音。黑雾的触须在空中合流，大团沸腾的雾气之中全是尖牙利爪和亟待杀戮的眼睛。

“It’ll take more than the dead to kill me,” he grunted. “Bastard thing just winded me.”

厄运小姐尽力想爬起来，但她的手脚已经酸痛得抬都抬不起来。她愤恨地咬紧了牙。她的人只剩下五六个，而这屋子里的大部分人连打架都不会。

Glass broke somewhere up above. Coils of black mist coalesced overhead, a boiling mass of snapping teeth, claws and hungry eyes.

死者正涌进来。

Miss Fortune tried to get to her feet, but her limbs burned with exhaustion. She ground her teeth in frustration. Barely a handful of her company remained, and the people sheltering in here weren’t fighters.

她回头望着俄洛伊。

The dead were getting in.

女祭司和她的手下仍在围着雕像转圈，兀自进行着拍打的仪式。没有任何事情即将发生的迹象。那座奇怪的雕像完全无动于衷。

Miss Fortune looked back at Illaoi.

她到底在搞什么？难道是想让那雕像活过来把死灵都赶走吗？她以为自己是皮城的科学家吗？

The priestess was surrounded by her people, all of them still circling the statue and performing their fist-thumping, palm-slapping ritual. It didn’t appear to be achieving anything. The strange statue remained unmoving and impotent.

“不管你在干什么，快点儿！”厄运小姐朝俄洛伊大叫。

What had she expected, that it would come to life and drive the dead back like some clanking iron golem from Piltover?

屋顶的木板被掀起了一块，打着转儿被风吹走了。死灵聚成一柱，像龙卷风一样落下来，降在所有还活着的人头顶。

“Whatever it is you’re doing, do it faster!” shouted Miss Fortune.

大门终于支持不住向内炸开，木板在亡灵的碰触下变得干朽。恐怖的狩猎号角声响彻大殿，厄运小姐艰难地捂住了耳朵。

A section of the roof ripped loose and spun off into the tempest surrounding the temple. A swirling column of spirits boiled inside and touched down like a tornado. Wraiths and things that defied understanding spun from the unliving vortex to fall upon the living.

赫卡里姆迈进神庙，身后跟进来一班死灵骑士，踏倒了顶门的壮丁们。他们的灵魂被收进了战争之影的刀锋里，阴寒的火焰随即高涨起来，映得神庙内一片瘟疫般的惨绿。屋中的亡灵见到赫卡里姆的威势，都不禁退伏到一边。

Finally the door gave out and exploded inwards, the timbers dry and rotted by the touch of the dead. The skirling blast of a hunting horn filled the temple, and Miss Fortune’s hands flew to her ears at its deafening echoes.

“我说过，此地不欢迎死者。”俄洛伊暴喝。

Hecarim rode into the temple, crushing the men who’d been bracing the door with their bodies. Their souls were drawn up into the Shadow of War’s flaming glaive, and the cold fire of its edge illuminated the temple with loathsome radiance. His death knights rode at his back, and the spirits already within the temple drew back in recognition of Hecarim’s terrible glory.

她站在厄运小姐旁，身材敦实伟岸。苍白的光线萦绕在她的全身，手中的石球则溅射着光芒。她的双手微微颤抖，下巴紧绷，脖子上暴起的青筋宛如粗缆，汗珠如小溪一般滚落她的面颊。

“I said the dead are not welcome here,” boomed Illaoi.

无论俄洛伊在干什么，显然极费心神。

Miss Fortune looked up to see the priestess towering over her, stout and majestic. Pale light clung to her limbs and sparkled on the stone tablet she held in trembling hands. Veins stood out like hawsers on her neck, and her jawline was taut with effort. Sweat ran in runnels down her face.

“这些易朽的灵魂都是我的。”赫卡里姆说。厄运小姐听到他金铁交击的喉音，不禁蜷起了身子。

Whatever Illaoi was doing was costing her greatly.

“并非如此。此处是娜迦卡波洛丝的宫邸，而她正与死者对立。”

“These mortal souls are mine,” said Hecarim, and Miss Fortune felt herself recoil from the iron syllables of his voice.

“死灵必会得偿所愿。”赫卡里姆垂下长戟，正对着俄洛伊的心口。

“They are not,” said Illaoi. “This is the house of Nagakabouros, who stands in opposition to the dead.”

女祭司摇了摇头。

“The dead will have their due,” said Hecarim, lowering his glaive to point at Illaoi’s heart.

“不在今日，”她说，“因我仍在动。”

The priestess shook her head.

“你挡不住我。”

“Not today,” she said. “Not while I still move.”

“聋如死人。”俄洛伊笑了一声，身后的光芒渐渐壮大。“我何曾说过要挡住你。”

“You cannot stop me.”

厄运小姐看见那座扭曲的雕像正笼罩在夺目的光华中。白光从它的表面流淌出来，经过的地方没有半点暗影胆敢停留。光芒浪涌向前，她遮住双眼以免暴盲。黑雾不断剥啄消散，露出藏匿其中的畸怪恶灵。白光将长年诅咒它们的可憎魔法净化殆尽。

“Deaf as well as dead,” grinned Illaoi as a swelling radiance built behind her. “I didn’t say I was going to stop you.”

厄运小姐本以为会听到尖叫，没想到摆脱了束缚的亡灵却为了重获自由喜极而泣。光芒沿着破败的墙壁扩散开来，而当她也浸没在其中时，便忍不住痛叫起来——一股洋溢着生命气息的暖流贯穿她的身心，彻底抽空了死一般的麻痹感。

Miss Fortune turned and saw the spiraling statue bathed in blinding radiance. White light smoked from its surfaces, and shadows fled from its touch. She shielded her eyes as the light billowed outwards like writhing tentacles and where it met the Black Mist it stripped it bare, exposing the twisted souls within. The sinuous light pulled the dead onwards, purging the baleful magic that cursed them to undeath so very long ago.

娜伽卡波洛丝的光芒靠近了赫卡里姆，厄运小姐看到他也开始畏惧，不知道这光芒会将他变成什么样子。

She expected screams, but instead the unbound dead wept with joy as their souls were freed to move on. The light spread over the cracked walls of the temple, and as it touched her, Miss Fortune cried out as the deathly numbness in her flesh was banished in a rush of heat and life.

能有什么更可怕的东西，让他宁愿背负着诅咒也不愿接受呢？

The light of Nagakabouros closed on Hecarim, and Miss Fortune saw his fear at the thought of what transformations it might work upon him.

“你也可自由，赫卡里姆。”俄洛伊的声音似乎已经达到了她的极限。“你上前来，在光明中痛悔自己曾经的愚蠢和悲痛，重新成为你渴望的人吧。”

What could be so awful that it was better to remain cursed?

赫卡里姆怒吼一声，挥刀砍向俄洛伊的脖子。

“You can be free, Hecarim,” said Illaoi, her voice strained to the limits of endurance by what she had unleashed. “You can move on, live in the light as the man you always dreamed of being before his grief and folly remade you.”

厄运小姐的佩剑横空飞来。两兵相接，激出一道火光。

Hecarim roared and swept his glaive at Illaoi’s neck.

“滚出我的城市。”她说。

Miss Fortune’s blade intercepted it in a clashing flare of sparks. She shook her head.

赫卡里姆抽刀欲刺，但光芒猛然洞穿了他的铠甲。他痛苦地咆哮起来，在灼热的炙烤中一头栽倒在地。一个骑士的光影从他体内浮空而起，像是同一块幕布前互相对应的两幅画像，在烛火中摇曳。

“Get out of my city,” she said.

厄运小姐略略一瞥，只见那个骑士身着金银盔甲，一张年轻的英俊脸庞上是一对骄傲的深色眼睛，似乎正有无尽的光荣在未来等待着他。

Hecarim’s blade drew back for another strike, but before the blow could land, the light finally pierced his veil of darkness. He bellowed in pain and fell back from its burning touch. The dark rider’s outline shimmered, like two picture box images wavering in candlelight on the same backcloth.

他后来怎么了？

Miss Fortune caught a fleeting glimpse of a tall rider, armored in silver and gold. A young man, handsome and proud with dark eyes and a future of glory ahead of him.

赫卡里姆一路大吼着冲出了神庙。

What happened to him?

他的鬼骑士们纷纷掉头而去，一大丛残破不堪的灵魂拖着尾迹跟着它们一同消失。

Hecarim roared and galloped from the temple.

His death knights and the darkness went with him, a shrieking host of tattered spirits following in their wake.

娜迦卡波洛丝之光如同黎明般溶进了比尔吉沃特。所有人都被如此美妙的景象折服：如同风暴过后的第一缕阳光，或是苦寒冬日里的第一丝春意。

The light of Nagakabouros spread over Bilgewater like the coming dawn. None who saw it could ever remember so sweet a sight; the first rays of sunlight after a storm, the first hint of warmth after a bitter winter.

黑雾节节败退，卷起所有惊悚的亡魂汇成一团混沌的风暴。失控的死者们互相啃食，有些自觉化进了白光，而有些则挣扎着想要逃离。

The Black Mist withdrew before it, roiling in a churning maelstrom of panicked spirits. The dead turned on one another in a frenzy, some fighting to return from whence they had come as others actively sought out the light’s release.

黑雾最终退回大海深处，回到了它们占据的诅咒之岛。全城恢复了宁静。

Silence fell as the Black Mist drew back over the ocean, drawn to the cursed island where it claimed dominion.

东方已近破晓，清澈的风扫过比尔吉沃特，人们终于松了口气。

True dawn broke over the eastern horizon, and a cleansing wind blew through the city as the people of Bilgewater let out a collective breath.

蚀魂夜结束了。

The Harrowing was over.

神庙里一片寂静，与片刻之前的血腥混战仿佛是两个世界。

Silence filled the temple; the utter lack of sound a stark contrast to the mayhem of moments ago.

“完事了。”厄运小姐说。

“It’s done,” said Miss Fortune.

“还有下次。黑雾有着病态般的欲望。”俄洛伊疲倦地说。

“Until the next time,” said Illaoi wearily. “The Black Mist’s hunger burns like a sickness.”

“你做了什么？”

“What did you do?”

“我必须做的。”

“What I had to.”

“无论如何，我感谢你。”

“Whatever it was, I thank you.”

俄洛伊摇摇头，有力的手臂搭在厄运小姐肩上。

Illaoi shook her head and put a powerful arm around Miss Fortune’s shoulder.

“感谢神明。”俄洛伊说，“献一份供品，来份大的。”

“Thank the goddess,” said Illaoi. “Make an offering. Something big.”

“我会的，”厄运小姐说。

“I will,” said Miss Fortune.

“最好不过。我的神讨厌空口许诺。”

“You better. My god dislikes empty promises.”

她感到一丝威胁的语气，一瞬间想给俄洛伊的脑门来上一枪。但她还没来得及挪动手指，俄洛伊就像断了绳的船帆那样委身坐倒。厄运小姐抓了一把想撑住她，她实在是太沉了。

The veiled threat rankled, and for a moment she thought of putting a bullet through the priestess’ skull. Before she could do more than inch her hand to her pistols, Illaoi crumpled like a ripped topsail. Miss Fortune grabbed for her, but the priestess was too enormous to hold upright alone.

两人一齐瘫在贝壳缀成的地面上。

They went to the seashell floor together.

“雷文，帮我把她弄起来。”

“Rafen, help me get her up,” she said.

他们喘着粗气，好不容易才把俄洛伊架到一条靠背长椅上。她的身子就跟军舰一样笨重。

Together they propped Illaoi up against a broken pew, grunting with the effort of shifting her colossal bulk.

“胡子女士从海里出来了……”雷文说。

“The Bearded Lady rose from the sea...” said Rafen.

“别犯傻了，我说过娜伽卡波洛丝不在海底。”

“Don’t be stupid all your life,” said Illaoi. “I said Nagakabouros doesn’t live under the sea.”

“那她在哪里？天上？”雷文问。

“So where does she live?” asked Rafen. “In the sky?”

俄洛伊摇着头，一拳打在他的胸口。雷文闷哼一声，痛苦地缩起身子。

Illaoi shook her head and punched him in the heart. Rafen grunted and winced in pain.

“她在那里。”

“There is where you find her.”

俄洛伊为自己古怪的幽默感微笑起来，缓缓闭上了双眼。

Illaoi grinned at the obliqueness of her answer and her eyes drifted closed.

“她死了吗？”雷文揉着受伤的胸口问。

“Is she dead?” asked Rafen, rubbing his bruised chest.

俄洛伊抬起手，又赏了他一耳光。

Illaoi reached up and slapped him.

然后便开始打鼾，活像一个得了肺气肿的码头工人。

Then started snoring like a stevedore with lung-blight.

卢锡安坐在桥边，看着城市从黑雾中慢慢浮现。他对比尔吉沃特的第一印象非常糟糕，但是现在，当阳光落在数以万计的屋顶上，映出温暖的琥珀色光辉时，他感到了一种别样的美丽。

Lucian sat on the edge of the bridge and watched the city emerge from Black Mist. He’d hated Bilgewater on first sight, but there was a quality of beauty to it as the sunlight bathed its myriad clay-tiled roofs in a warm amber glow.

城市重生。每次蚀魂夜后都会如此。

A city reborn, like it was every time the Harrowing receded.

这个恐怖的夜晚有个不错的名字，但所承载的悲痛意味与实际相比不足万一。这里真的有人明白暗影岛上的悲剧吗？

An apt name for this dread moment, but one that carried only a fraction of the sorrow of its origins. Did anyone here really understand the real tragedy of the Shadow Isles?

就算他们明白，又会在乎多少？

And even if they did, would they care?

他听到由远及近的脚步声。

He turned as he heard footsteps approaching.

“从上面看下去，还挺美的。”厄运小姐说。

“It’s kind of pretty from up here,” said Miss Fortune.

“但也只有在这儿能看。”

“But only from up here.”

“是的，这里是毒蛇的巢穴。有好人也有坏人，但我会让坏人更少一些。”

“Yes, it’s a viper’s nest alright,” said Miss Fortune. “There’s good people and bad people, but I’ve been making sure there’s a lot less of the bad.”

“我听说是你先开战的。你这么一说，倒像是饮鸩止渴的法子。”

“The way I hear it, you started a war,” said Lucian. “Some might say that’s like burning down your house to kill a rat.”

他看到她脸上泛起怒气，但转瞬即逝。

He saw anger touch her, but it passed quickly.

“我觉得自己是为了大家好，”厄运小姐跨坐在栏杆上，“但他们却变得更加糟糕。我得做点什么，马上开始。”

“I thought I was making things better for everyone,” she said, straddling the parapet, “but they’re only getting worse. I need to do something about that, starting now.”

“你闯进黑雾是为了这个？”

“Is that why you were out in the Black Mist?”

她思索了一会儿。

The woman thought for a moment.

“也许起初不是。我杀了普朗克，却放跑了一条剃刀鳗。如果我不把它捉回来，它就会咬死很多好人。”

“Maybe not at first,” she said. “I let a razor-eel off the hook when I killed Gangplank, and if I don’t take hold of it and get it back on, it’s going to bite a lot of the good people.”

“剃刀鳗？”

“A razor-eel?”

“我的意思是，当我把海盗王弄垮时并不知道他死后会发生什么。我当时也不在乎。但现在我看清楚了，如果没人做主，山下会变成什么样。比尔吉沃特需要一个强有力的统治者，而不出意外的话那个人必定是我。战争刚刚开始，最快结束的办法就是让我赢。”

“What I mean to say is that when I brought the Pirate King down, I had no idea what would happen when he was gone. I didn’t much care,” she said. “But I’ve seen what’s happening down there without someone in control. The city’s tearing its own throat out. Bilgewater needs someone strong at the top. No reason that someone can’t be me. The war’s just starting, and the only way it’ll end quickly is if I win it.”

两人沉默了一阵。

The silence between them stretched.

“我拒绝。”

“My answer is no.”

“我还没问呢。”

“I didn’t ask anything.”

“你马上要问了。”卢锡安说。“你想让我留下来帮你打仗，但是我不能。这是你的战争，不是我的。”

“You’re going to,” said Lucian. “You want me to stay and help you win your war, but I can’t. Your fight isn’t my fight.”

“也可以是你的。我的报酬很高，而且你可以杀掉很多人渣。还可以拯救很多无辜的灵魂。”

“It could be,” said Miss Fortune. “The pay’s good and you’d get to kill a lot of bad people. And save a lot of innocent souls.”

“只有一个灵魂是我要救的。而我没法在比尔吉沃特做到。”

“There is only one soul I need to save,” said Lucian. “And I won’t save it in Bilgewater.”

厄运小姐点点头，伸出了手。

Miss Fortune nodded and held out her hand.

“那我只能说再会了。祝你狩猎顺利。”她站起来，掸了掸裤子上的灰尘。“希望你能找到自己想要的。只是，不要在复仇的路上迷失了自己。”

“Then I’ll say farewell and good hunting,” she said, standing and dusting her britches. “I hope you find what you’re looking for. Just know that you can lose yourself to revenge.”

卢锡安看着她柔弱的背影走向神庙的残迹，幸存的人正从大门里钻出来，半眯着眼走进阳光下。她自以为明白他的目的，但其实根本不沾边。

Lucian watched her limp back to the sagging ruins of the temple as the survivors within emerged, blinking, into the daylight. She thought she understood what drove him, but she hadn’t the first clue.

复仇？他想要的比复仇多得多。

Vengeance? He was far beyond vengeance.

他的挚爱仍在那个不死的幽魂手中饱受摧残，而那个家伙亘古以来就是折磨人的个中好手。

His beloved was held in torment by an undying wraith, a creature from ancient days that understood suffering like no other.

厄运小姐无法理解他的苦痛，哪怕千分之一。

Miss Fortune did not understand even a fraction of his pain.

他站起身，目光望向大海。

He rose and lifted his gaze out to sea.

一片宁静而广阔的翠绿色。

The ocean was calm now, an emerald green expanse.

已经有人去到码头上，开始修补船只、重建家园。比尔吉沃特永不停歇，哪怕是蚀魂夜刚刚过去的清晨。他的目光扫过港口千帆，想找一艘还能出海的船。总会有一个贪财如命的船长愿意送他一程的。

People were already moving down on the docks, repairing ships and rebuilding their homes. Bilgewater never stopped, even in the aftermath of the Harrowing. He scanned the forest of swaying masts, looking for a ship that wasn’t too badly damaged. Perhaps one desperate captain could be persuaded to take him where he needed to go.

“我来了，我的光明。我来救你自由。”

“I am coming, my light,” he said. “And I will free you.”

渔夫吃力地转动绞盘，把那个壮汉从水里吊到船上。绳索几乎要断成两截，而就算是在冷风中也把他累得满头大汗。

The fisherman grunted as he worked the stern-windlass to haul the big man from the water and onto his boat. The rope was frayed and he sweated in the cold air as he worked the crank.

“我以她的胡茬儿发誓，你这王八蛋真是够壮的，真真儿的。”他用鱼叉撬开壮汉的甲胄，再把他拖到甲板上。他警惕地看着周围，以防其他掠夺者打扰——天上海里都有。

“By the bristles of her bearded chin, you’re a big bastard, right sure ye are,” he said, snagging the big man’s armor with a gaffing hook and pulling him around over the rolling deck. He kept a wary eye out for predators, above and below the surface.

黑雾退去没多久，大批渔船便出海了。水里满是战利品，慢上一步就连鸟粪都捞不着了。

No sooner had the Black Mist withdrawn over the horizon than scores of boats put out to sea. The waters were awash with plunder, and if you weren’t fast, you ended up with nothing.

他是第一个发现这家伙的。为了抢到手，他把六个杂种都给打跑了。那些该死的败类，谁也别想从他手里抢走这份宝贝。

He’d spotted the floating man first and had already fought off six sewer-jacks trying to reach him. Damned if wharf-scum like them were going to steal this ocean bounty from him.

壮汉当时浮在一块烂肉上，像是海魁虫的遗骸。它的触手已经腐烂，散发出浓烈的恶臭。那人就这样躺在上面随波逐流。

The big man had been drifting on a bed of what looked like the remains of a giant Krakenwyrm. Its tentacles were pulped and bloated with noxious gasses, which was all that had kept the big man’s armored form afloat.

他把壮汉靠着船舷边缘，仔细地打量。

He dropped his catch to the deck and laid him out along the gunwale before casting an appraising eye over his body.

一副沉重的铁甲，鳞片和扣环上坑坑洼洼。一双毛边靴子。而最棒的东西就是他扣在甲胄上的那把斧头。

A heavy iron hauberk of ring and scale, rugged, fur-lined boots and, best of all, a magnificent axe tangled in the straps of his armor.

“噢噢，好极了，给大爷送钱花了，小宝贝儿。”他高兴得跳起了吉格舞。“发笔小财！”

“Oh, yes, make a few Krakens out of you, me beauty,” he said, dancing a happy jig around his boat. “A few Krakens indeed!”

壮汉咳出几口苦咸的海水。

The big man coughed up brackish seawater.

“我还活着？”他问。

“Am I still alive?” he asked.

渔夫停下舞步，伸手摸索着腰上平时给鱼开膛的长刀。给人开膛好像也没什么难度吧。反正这也不是第一次给胡子女士送礼了。

The fisherman stopped his happy jig and slid a hand towards the long knife at his belt. He used it to open fish bellies. No reason he couldn’t use it to open a throat. Wouldn’t be the first time a salvager had helped someone on their way to the Bearded Lady to claim a prize.

壮汉睁开了眼睛。

The big man opened his eyes.

“你要再摸一下刀子，我就把你剁成肉酱，比那条狗屎海魁虫更加稀烂！”

“Touch that knife again and I’ll cut you into more pieces than that damned Krakenwyrm.”