He saw himself upon a vast field, fighting an endless horde of daemonkind. But he was not Horus the Warmaster, he was Horus Lupercal, favoured of the Emperor. This other Horus turned his face skywards, to where the Warmaster's presence watched, and shouted words that the Warmaster could not hear. His face was twisted in anguish and hatred, and a tremor ran through the Warmaster's soul at the sight of this other self. So many deaths, he seemed to be saying, so much betrayal, so many oaths broken.

'So much blood,' Horus whispered.

Abaddon stopped his gloating. 'My lord?'

Horus came back to himself suddenly. His eyes opened. Sweat trickled down into his eyes. He felt nauseous. Weakness he could never show, and he hid it deep within himself. 'Nothing. Destroy the Space Wolves. When you are done, re-join me. The moment to strike is upon us. Today, I shall send out a call to our fleets and our armies,' he said. The time has come to make our drive for Terra.

'We move on Beta-Garmon.'

Afterword

Afterword

Writing a Horus Heresy novel is the pinnacle of ambition for any Black Library author. When you're asked to pen one of these stories, you know you've made it, trusted as you are with the most epic series of books in the Games Workshop canon.

Wolfsbane is my second foray into Horus Heresy long-form fiction. Its singular focus on one primarch makes it a very different novel to Pharos, which has several subplots of equal weight.

Naturally, I read all I could about Leman, King of the Russ, before I began this task. He and his Legion have been familiar to me for a long time, of course - in the background lore and upon the tabletop. My regular opponent in the 1980s, who incidentally has become my foe again in this middle portion of my life, played Space Wolves back then, so I've seen their grey livery lurking on the far side of the battlefield many times. Long participation in the hobby meant that I knew the main events of Russ' story within the Horus Heresy, but the details were unknown to me.

I've come to the Horus Heresy at a strange angle. For many years, all my reading time was taken up with reviewing books. Rarely did I have the luxury of choice when it came to reading matter. Writing for the Horus Heresy has given me the opportunity, through necessity, of enjoying everything I'd missed.

By the point I was commissioned to write Wolfsbane, I had made great strides in catching up with the story of the galaxy's greatest civil war, reading everything I needed to and more besides, but certain of the Legions' arcs remained unfamiliar territory. Russ' Space Wolves was one of them.