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 精疲力尽的从芦苇从中走出来，脸上和手臂上到处都是飞舞的Fleshflies，回头往Cyrodill方向望去，那座桥已经被黑色的河水淹没，他知道再也没有回头路可以走了，同时这条河也带走了他的所有的文件，从今往后他只能依靠着自己的记忆了。
Mailic was purposefully striding through the reeds ahead. Flailing ineffectually at the fleshflies, Scotti hurried after him.
Mailic 已经迈开步子大步朝前走去，Scotti也赶紧跟上，并不时地挥舞着手臂阻挡这烦人的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."
“我们很幸运，先生。”Mailic说到。Scotti很疑惑的看着他顺着他的手指方向。“有车队在那里。”
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架生锈的满身是泥的拖车，摇摇晃晃的陈旧木头车轮半陷在松软的土里。一群Argonian人，有着灰色的眼睛全身也是灰色的鳞片，在Cyrodiil很多这种劳工，一个人拉着一辆车慢慢前行。他们走进一看，都是一车车的黑莓，都因为腐烂了几乎快要看不出原来的样子了。与其说是装的水果不如说是发霉的果冻。
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，他们正是要去Cideon市，等他们卸完这车货物Scotti们就可以搭乘他们的车。
"How long ago were they picked?" Scotti asked, looking at the wagon's rotten produce.
“这些事多久以前采摘的？”Scotti问到，看着这车已经腐烂的水果。
"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.
“当然是在上个种月丰收的。” 一个看起来是领导人的Argonian人说到，现在是日暮时节，所以他们这趟旅途走了两个多月了。
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.
很显然，这样的交通运输问题，正是他作为Vanech的委员会的一员必须要解决的事。
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.
他们花了一小时的时间来把装有黑莓的拖车推到一边，再把这个拖车前面和后面的连在一起，把头车的一匹马签到一个单独的拖车前面，那些工人也都疲惫不堪。趁着奴隶检查车队的机会Scotti和他们聊了起来。
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.
有四个拖车里面有凳子给那些驾驶员，其他的空位都被肉类，蔬菜和大米等占满，而这些东西都不同程度的发霉腐败。
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.
这个车队有6个Argonian奴隶，3个Imperial商人被昆虫叮咬的从肤色上看和那几个Argonian奴隶一样，还有3个身披斗篷的，红色眼睛在兜帽的阴影中闪烁的Dunmer人。这条马路Imperial Commerce Road 他们的所有货物都依靠这条马路。
"This is a road?" Scotti exclaimed, looking at the endless field of reeds that reached up to his chin or higher.
“这都能算作马路？”Scotti惊呼道，看着那高高的芦苇丛无限延伸出去。
"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."
“路面还挺坚固，至少一部分是。”一个Dunmer耸耸肩说到，“这些芦苇马儿也可以吃，我们也可以用来生火，它们生长的挺快的。”
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.
终于，车队队长示意准备出发。Scotti和其他Imperial人坐在第三个拖车上，他四周望望，没有在车上看到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."
“我答应带你到Black Marsh 和带你回来”Mailic一边大口吃着毛茸茸的萝卜，一边把一个石头丢到芦苇丛中说到，“当你回来的时候我会在这儿等你。”
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眉头一皱，不仅仅只是没有尊称他为“先生”而已。现在他知道没人愿意呆在Black Marsh。不过，只有车队还在摇摇晃晃的慢慢前行，他已经没有时间再计较了。
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.
一股腐臭味道的风吹过，在一片芦苇丛中划出一片痕迹，在远处山脉依稀可见，一行车队继续行走着，Scotti突然感觉到，迷雾一直笼罩在他们周围，偶尔有一小团阴影从空中穿过，抬头一看，几只有着和身体一样大小的锯齿状的喙的大鸟在天空盘旋。
"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 说到，一个Imperial人正坐在Scotti的左边。一个看起来很沧桑的年轻人。“在这个该死的地方，和所有的生物一样，只要你不动，它们就会吃了你。把你击倒给你致命一击，在天空盘旋直到你因失血而死再吃掉你。”
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一阵哆嗦。他希望能在夜幕降临前到达Gideon。但是他发现太阳的位置不对。
"Excuse me, sir," Scotti called to the wagonmaster. "I thought you said we were going to Gideon?"
“对不起打扰下，先生”Scotti向车队领队问道，“你之前说我们是去往Gideon？”
The wagonmaster nodded.
领队点点头。
"Why are we going north then, when we should be going south?"
“那为什么是向北？而我们应该往南方方向前进？”
There was no reply but a sigh.
没有回复。
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又和其他同伴确认了他们的目的地也是Gideon，但是看他们对这个事不是很在意。他不舒服的坐在车上，伴随着车轮前进时摇晃的节奏和芦苇随风而摇晃的动作，他渐渐睡着了。
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，在几个小时后的夜幕里，不知道在什么地方，车队也停下来了。他正躺在地上在座位的下面，听他身旁是鸡哥小箱子。他听到一些声响，说着一些他听不懂的带有嘶嘶声的语言，他从几个人的腿下缝隙中往外看到底发生了什么事情。
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.
月光很难从厚厚的雾中穿过，Scotti没法看清谁在说话，有那么一阵，感觉就好像领队在和自己说话一样，过了一会儿雾飘走了他才能看清楚。闪闪发亮的鳞片，数不清楚有多少个这些东西，但是它们又黑又大。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.
当Scotti清楚的看到他们巨大的嘴里长着一排排像针一样的尖牙的时候他滑倒在座位下面，那些家伙还好没有往下面看。
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.
他看到几条腿被摇来摇去被甩出车外，他赶紧蹲在几个小箱子的后面。他不知道怎么躲起来，但至少有些许经验。至少在你和坏东西的中间有任何可以隔离的东西总是好的。
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.
在那脚消失的几秒后，听到了一声惨叫，然后接着第二声，第三声，不同的声音，音调，传达出同样的信息。。。恐怖和痛苦。Scotti 想起来他已经很久没有向God Stendarr祷告了，立马祈祷保佑他平安无事。
Then there was silence... ghastly silence that lasted only a few minutes, but which seemed like hours... years.
然后就是一片寂静，这种寂静持续了几分钟，但是Scotti觉得就像是过了一年。。。
And then the carriage started rolling forward again.
之后车队继续前行。
Scotti cautiously crawled out from under the carriage. Chaero Gemullus gave him a bemused grin.
Scotti小心翼翼的从下面爬出来，Chaero 微微一笑。
"There you are," he said. "I thought the Nagas took you."
“你还在啊。”他说到：“我还以为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."
“肮脏的家伙。” Chaero皱了下眉。“长着手脚的大蟒，7尺高，当他生气时是8尺。来自沼泽深处，他们不喜欢这个地方，所有特别暴躁，而你这种有钱的Imperial人是他们寻找的目标。”
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从来没有觉得他是一个有钱人家。他一身都是泥土和脏兮兮的被Fleshfly弄得到处都是口子的衣服，看起来最多也是中等公民。“他们找我做什么？”
"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?"
“当然是抢劫。” 这个Imperial人笑道。“然后杀掉，你没有注意到他们对之前的人做了什么？”他突然想到了什么一下严肃起来说到：“你有没有从下面的箱子里拿了什么，比如糖果之类的，有没有？”
"Gods, no," Scotti grimaced.
“天啊，没有”Scotti说到。
The Imperial nodded, relieved. "You just seem a little slow. First time to Black Marsh, I gather? Oh! Heigh ho, Hist piss!"
Imperial人点点头，放松起来。“你看起来有些迟钝，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.
当Scotti在问他们怎么打算的时候外面开始下起了雨。一股地狱的腐败的气味黄褐色的雨水冲刷着货车，远处雷声轰轰。Chaero正在为货车罩上罩子，Scotti也在他火辣的注视下开始一起动手。
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.
他有些微微发抖，不仅仅是因为天气渐凉，还得必须呼吸着从货车里面散发出来的已经腐烂的气味。
"We'll be dry soon enough," Gemullus smiled, pointing out into the fog.
“我们很快就会干爽起来了。”Gemullus笑着说，指了指天上的快要消散的云雾。
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从没有去过Gideon，但是他知道他想的是什么，一座大型居住地差不多和Imperial城一样大小，差不多的帝国建筑风格，差不多的帝国传统习俗和生活方式，差不多地。。。
The jumble of huts half-sunk in mud was decidedly less.
不过眼前的景象是，稀稀拉拉的小屋，几乎是要被埋进土里的。
"Where are we?" asked Scotti, bewildered.
“我们在哪里？”Scotti困惑的问道。
"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说到，很满意自己能一次念完这么拗口的名字。“你是对的，我们本来该往南方的，结果走到了北方”
