Decumus Scotti emerged from the dirt and reeds, exhausted from running, his face and arms sheathed in red fleshflies. Looking back towards Cyrodiil, he saw the bridge disappear beneath the thick black river, and he knew he was not getting back until the tide went down in a few days' time. The river also held in its adhesive depths his files on the Black Marsh account. He would have to rely on his memory for his contacts in Gideon.
Scotti 精疲力盡的從蘆葦從中走出來，臉上和手臂上到處都是飛舞的Fleshflies，回頭往Cyrodill方向望去，那座橋已經被黑色的河水淹沒，他知道再也沒有回頭路可以走了，同時這條河也帶走了他的所有的文件，從今往后他只能依靠著自己的記憶了。
Mailic was purposefully striding through the reeds ahead. Flailing ineffectually at the fleshflies, Scotti hurried after him.
Mailic 已經邁開步子大步朝前走去，Scotti也趕緊跟上，并不時地揮舞著手臂阻擋這煩人的Fleshflies。
"We're lucky, sir," said the Redguard, which struck Scotti as an extraordinarily odd thing to say, until his eyes followed where the man's finger was pointing. "The caravan is here."
“我們很幸運，先生?！盡ailic說到。Scotti很疑惑的看著他順著他的手指方向?！坝熊囮犜谀抢铩！?/p>
Twenty-one rusted, mud-spattered wagons with rotting wood and wobbly wheels sat half-sunk in the soft earth ahead. A crowd of Argonians, gray-scaled and gray-eyed, the sort of sullen manual laborers that were common in Cyrodiil, pulled at one of the wagons which had been detached from the others. As Scotti and Mailic came closer, they saw it was filled with a cargo of black berries so decayed that they had become hardly recognizable... more a festering jelly than a wagonload of fruit.
21架生銹的滿身是泥的拖車，搖搖晃晃的陳舊木頭車輪半陷在松軟的土里。一群Argonian人，有著灰色的眼睛全身也是灰色的鱗片，在Cyrodiil很多這種勞工，一個人拉著一輛車慢慢前行。他們走進一看，都是一車車的黑莓，都因為腐爛了幾乎快要看不出原來的樣子了。與其說是裝的水果不如說是發霉的果凍。
Yes, they were going to the city of Gideon, and, yes, they said, Scotti could get a ride with them after they were finished unloading this shipment of lumberries.
是的，他們正是要去Cideon市，等他們卸完這車貨物Scotti們就可以搭乘他們的車。
"How long ago were they picked?" Scotti asked, looking at the wagon's rotten produce.
“這些事多久以前采摘的？”Scotti問到，看著這車已經腐爛的水果。
"The harvest was in Last Seed, of course," said the Argonian who seemed to be in charge of the wagon. It was now Sun's Dusk, so they had been en route from the fields for a little over two months.
“當然是在上個種月豐收的。” 一個看起來是領導人的Argonian人說到，現在是日暮時節，所以他們這趟旅途走了兩個多月了。
Clearly, Scotti thought, there were problems with transportation. But fixing that, after all, was what he was doing here as a representative of Lord Vanech's Building Commission.
很顯然，這樣的交通運輸問題，正是他作為Vanech的委員會的一員必須要解決的事。
It took close to an hour of the berries rotting even more in the sun for the wagon to be pushed to the side, the wagons in front of it and behind it to be attached to one another, and one of the eight horses from the front of the caravan to be brought around to the now independent wagon. The laborers moved with dispirited lethargy, and Scotti took the opportunity to inspect the rest of the caravan and talk to his fellow travelers.
他們花了一小時的時間來把裝有黑莓的拖車推到一邊，再把這個拖車前面和后面的連在一起，把頭車的一匹馬簽到一個單獨的拖車前面，那些工人也都疲憊不堪。趁著奴隸檢查車隊的機會Scotti和他們聊了起來。
Four of the wagons had benches in them, fit for uncomfortable riders. All the rest were filled with grain, meat, and vegetation in various stages of corruption.
有四個拖車里面有凳子給那些駕駛員，其他的空位都被肉類，蔬菜和大米等占滿，而這些東西都不同程度的發霉腐敗。
The travelers consisted of the six Argonian laborers, three Imperial merchants so bug-bitten that their skin looked as scaly as the Argonians themselves, and three cloaked fellows who were evidently Dunmer, judging by the red eyes that gleamed in the shadows under their hoods. All were transporting their goods along this, the Imperial Commerce Road.
這個車隊有6個Argonian奴隸，3個Imperial商人被昆蟲叮咬的從膚色上看和那幾個Argonian奴隸一樣，還有3個身披斗篷的，紅色眼睛在兜帽的陰影中閃爍的Dunmer人。這條馬路Imperial Commerce Road 他們的所有貨物都依靠這條馬路。
"This is a road?" Scotti exclaimed, looking at the endless field of reeds that reached up to his chin or higher.
“這都能算作馬路？”Scotti驚呼道，看著那高高的蘆葦叢無限延伸出去。
"It's solid ground, of a sort," one of the hooded Dunmer shrugged. "The horses eat some of the reed, and sometimes we set fire to it, but it just grows right back up."
“路面還挺堅固，至少一部分是?！币粋€Dunmer聳聳肩說到，“這些蘆葦馬兒也可以吃，我們也可以用來生火，它們生長的挺快的?！?/p>
Finally, the wagonmaster signaled that the caravan was ready to go, and Scotti took a seat in the third wagon with the other Imperials. He looked around, but Mailic was not on board.
終于，車隊隊長示意準備出發。Scotti和其他Imperial人坐在第三個拖車上，他四周望望，沒有在車上看到Mailic。
"I agreed to get to you to Black Marsh and take you back out," said the Redguard, who had plumped down a rock in the sea of reeds and was munching on a hairy carrot. "I'll be here when you get back."
“我答應帶你到Black Marsh 和帶你回來”Mailic一邊大口吃著毛茸茸的蘿卜，一邊把一個石頭丟到蘆葦叢中說到，“當你回來的時候我會在這兒等你?！?/p>
Scotti frowned, and not only because Mailic had dropped the deferential title "sir" while addressing him. Now he truly knew no one in Black Marsh, but the caravan slowly grinded and bumped forward, so there was no time to argue.
Scotti眉頭一皺，不僅僅只是沒有尊稱他為“先生”而已?，F在他知道沒人愿意呆在Black Marsh。不過，只有車隊還在搖搖晃晃的慢慢前行，他已經沒有時間再計較了。
A noxious wind blew across the Commerce Road, casting patterns in the endless featureless expanse of reeds. In the distance, there seemed to be mountains, but they constantly shifted, and Scotti realized they were banks of mist and fog. Shadows flitted across the landscape, and when Scotti looked up, he saw they were being cast by giant birds with long, saw-like beaks nearly the size of the rest of their bodies.
一股腐臭味道的風吹過，在一片蘆葦叢中劃出一片痕跡，在遠處山脈依稀可見，一行車隊繼續行走著，Scotti突然感覺到，迷霧一直籠罩在他們周圍，偶爾有一小團陰影從空中穿過，抬頭一看，幾只有著和身體一樣大小的鋸齒狀的喙的大鳥在天空盤旋。
"Hackwings," Chaero Gemullus, an Imperial on Scotti's left, who might have been young but looked old and beaten, muttered. "Like everything else in this damnable place, they'll eat you if you don't keep moving. Beggars pounce down and give you a nasty chop, and then fly off and come back when you're mostly dead from blood loss."
“Hackwings！” Chaero 說到，一個Imperial人正坐在Scotti的左邊。一個看起來很滄桑的年輕人。“在這個該死的地方，和所有的生物一樣，只要你不動，它們就會吃了你。把你擊倒給你致命一擊，在天空盤旋直到你因失血而死再吃掉你?！?/p>
Scotti shivered. He hoped they'd be in Gideon before nightfall. It was then it occurred to him that the sun was on the wrong side of the caravan.
Scotti一陣哆嗦。他希望能在夜幕降臨前到達Gideon。但是他發現太陽的位置不對。
"Excuse me, sir," Scotti called to the wagonmaster. "I thought you said we were going to Gideon?"
“對不起打擾下，先生”Scotti向車隊領隊問道，“你之前說我們是去往Gideon？”
The wagonmaster nodded.
領隊點點頭。
"Why are we going north then, when we should be going south?"
“那為什么是向北？而我們應該往南方方向前進？”
There was no reply but a sigh.
沒有回復。
Scotti confirmed with his fellow travelers that they too were going to Gideon, and none of them seemed very concerned about the circuitous route to getting there. The seats were hard on his middle-aged back and buttocks, but the bumping rhythm of the caravan, and the hypnotic waving reeds gradually had an effect on him, and Scotti drifted off to sleep.
Scotti又和其他同伴確認了他們的目的地也是Gideon，但是看他們對這個事不是很在意。他不舒服的坐在車上，伴隨著車輪前進時搖晃的節奏和蘆葦隨風而搖晃的動作，他漸漸睡著了。
He awoke in the dark some hours later, not sure where he was. The caravan was no longer moving, and he was on the floor, under the bench, next to some small boxes. There were voices, speaking a hissing, clicking language Scotti didn't understand, and he peeked out between someone's legs to see what was happening.
他醒了，在幾個小時后的夜幕里，不知道在什么地方，車隊也停下來了。他正躺在地上在座位的下面，聽他身旁是雞哥小箱子。他聽到一些聲響，說著一些他聽不懂的帶有嘶嘶聲的語言，他從幾個人的腿下縫隙中往外看到底發生了什么事情。
The moons barely pierced the thick mist surrounding the caravan, and Scotti did not have the best angle to see who was talking. For a moment, it looked like the gray wagonmaster was talking to himself, but the darkness had movement and moisture, in fact, glistening scales. It was hard to tell how many of these things there were, but they were big, black, and the more Scotti looked at them, the more details he could see.
月光很難從厚厚的霧中穿過，Scotti沒法看清誰在說話，有那么一陣，感覺就好像領隊在和自己說話一樣，過了一會兒霧飄走了他才能看清楚。閃閃發亮的鱗片，數不清楚有多少個這些東西，但是它們又黑又大。Scotti也越看越清楚。
When one particular detail emerged, huge mouths filled with dripping needle-like fangs, Scotti slipped back under the bench. Their black little eyes had not fallen on him yet.
當Scotti清楚的看到他們巨大的嘴里長著一排排像針一樣的尖牙的時候他滑倒在座位下面，那些家伙還好沒有往下面看。
The legs in front of Scotti moved and then began to thrash, as their owner was grabbed and pulled out of the wagon. Scotti crouched further back, getting behind the little boxes. He didn't know much about concealment, but had some experience with shields. He knew that having something, anything, in between you and bad things was always good.
他看到幾條腿被搖來搖去被甩出車外，他趕緊蹲在幾個小箱子的后面。他不知道怎么躲起來，但至少有些許經驗。至少在你和壞東西的中間有任何可以隔離的東西總是好的。
A few seconds after the legs had disappeared from sight, there was a horrible scream. And then a second and a third. Different timbres, different accents, but the same inarticulate message... terror, and pain, horrible pain. Scotti remembered a long forgotten prayer to the god Stendarr and whispered it to himself.
在那腳消失的幾秒后，聽到了一聲慘叫，然后接著第二聲，第三聲，不同的聲音，音調，傳達出同樣的信息。。?？植篮屯纯?。Scotti 想起來他已經很久沒有向God Stendarr禱告了，立馬祈禱保佑他平安無事。
Then there was silence... ghastly silence that lasted only a few minutes, but which seemed like hours... years.
然后就是一片寂靜，這種寂靜持續了幾分鐘，但是Scotti覺得就像是過了一年。。。
And then the carriage started rolling forward again.
之后車隊繼續前行。
Scotti cautiously crawled out from under the carriage. Chaero Gemullus gave him a bemused grin.
Scotti小心翼翼的從下面爬出來，Chaero 微微一笑。
"There you are," he said. "I thought the Nagas took you."
“你還在啊?！彼f到：“我還以為Nagas 把你抓走了。”
"Nagas?"
"Nasty characters," Gemullus said, frowning. "Puff adders with legs and arms, seven feet tall, eight when they're mad. Come from the inner swamp, and they don't like it here much so they're particularly peevish. You're the kind of posh Imperial they're looking for."
“骯臟的家伙?！?Chaero皺了下眉?！伴L著手腳的大蟒，7尺高，當他生氣時是8尺。來自沼澤深處，他們不喜歡這個地方，所有特別暴躁，而你這種有錢的Imperial人是他們尋找的目標?！?/p>
Scotti had never in his life thought of himself as posh. His mud and fleshfly-bespeckled clothing seemed eminently middle-class, at best, to him. "What would they want me for?"
Scotti從來沒有覺得他是一個有錢人家。他一身都是泥土和臟兮兮的被Fleshfly弄得到處都是口子的衣服，看起來最多也是中等公民?！八麄冋椅易鍪裁?？”
"To rob, of course," the Imperial smiled. "And to kill. You didn't notice what happened to the others?" The Imperial frowned, as if struck by a thought. "You didn't sample from those boxes down below, did you? Like the sugar, do you?"
“當然是搶劫?！?這個Imperial人笑道。“然后殺掉，你沒有注意到他們對之前的人做了什么？”他突然想到了什么一下嚴肅起來說到：“你有沒有從下面的箱子里拿了什么，比如糖果之類的，有沒有？”
"Gods, no," Scotti grimaced.
“天啊，沒有”Scotti說到。?
The Imperial nodded, relieved. "You just seem a little slow. First time to Black Marsh, I gather? Oh! Heigh ho, Hist piss!"
Imperial人點點頭，放松起來。“你看起來有些遲鈍，第一次到Black Marsh吧，我猜？啊，嘿嘿吼吼！”
Scotti was just about to ask Gemullus what that vulgar term meant when the rain began. It was an inferno of foul-smelling, yellow-brown rain that washed over the caravan, accompanied by the growl of thunder in the distance. Gemullus worked to pull the roof up over the wagon, glaring at Scotti until he helped with the laborious process.
當Scotti在問他們怎么打算的時候外面開始下起了雨。一股地獄的腐敗的氣味黃褐色的雨水沖刷著貨車，遠處雷聲轟轟。Chaero正在為貨車罩上罩子，Scotti也在他火辣的注視下開始一起動手。
He shuddered, not only from the cold damp, but from contemplation of the disgusting precipitation pouring down on the already nasty produce in the uncovered wagon.
他有些微微發抖，不僅僅是因為天氣漸涼，還得必須呼吸著從貨車里面散發出來的已經腐爛的氣味。
"We'll be dry soon enough," Gemullus smiled, pointing out into the fog.
“我們很快就會干爽起來了。”Gemullus笑著說，指了指天上的快要消散的云霧。
Scotti had never been to Gideon, but he knew what to expect. A large settlement more or less laid out like a Imperial City, with more or less Imperial style architecture, and all the Imperial comforts and traditions, more or less.
Scotti從沒有去過Gideon，但是他知道他想的是什么，一座大型居住地差不多和Imperial城一樣大小，差不多的帝國建筑風格，差不多的帝國傳統習俗和生活方式，差不多地。。。
The jumble of huts half-sunk in mud was decidedly less.
不過眼前的景象是，稀稀拉拉的小屋，幾乎是要被埋進土里的。
"Where are we?" asked Scotti, bewildered.
“我們在哪里？”Scotti困惑的問道。
"Hixinoag," replied Gemullus, pronouncing the queer name with confidence. "You were right. We were going north when we should have been going south."
“Hixinoag”，Gemullus說到，很滿意自己能一次念完這么拗口的名字。“你是對的，我們本來該往南方的，結果走到了北方”
