BL: Hi Aaron. Thanks for talking to us, and thanks for writing the first ever app-exclusive story. The first thing everyone will want to know: what exactly is ‘Massacre’ about?
ADB: It's a vignette look into what Talos and the Night Lords’ Tenth Company got up to during the Horus Heresy. Just a glimpse here and there, to answer some of the bajillions of questions I still get asked by readers who dug the Night Lords series and want to know what the atmosphere among the characters was like back then. You see some of the Siege of Terra in flashbacks during the novels, but this was a chance to dial it back before even then.
BL: Sounds like we’ll get to see some of the characters from the Night Lords trilogy then?
ADB: Several, in their Heresy-era incarnations. Malcharion is still in command of Tenth Company. The Exalted is just ‘Sergeant Anrathi’. Talos is an Apothecary and is on the verge of suffering his first vision. Cyrion is still a git. You know the score.
BL: Why is this a must-read for fans of both the Horus Heresy and the Night Lords?
ADB: The connective tissue. I tried to frame it as a reflection of the visions Talos sees in the future: fragmented and torn, but with insight into other characters lurking amidst the chaos. I'm a big believer in not wanting to reveal too much about what my Warhammer 40,000 characters did long ago, but there are some narrative beats here that bind the story to the series in some subtle (and hopefully interesting) ways. Vignettes let you glance back to characters' origins without ruining the mystery.
BL: And what’s your favourite part of ‘Massacre’?
ADB: I think it's cool that we see Talos and First Claw the moment they got the Legion-wide message from Sevatar calling all of the Night Lords to Isstvan They're still licking the relatively fresh wounds from annihilating their home world, Nostramo. Really though, my favourite part is that connective tissue: the last scene (and the build up to the very last line), which is a little like holding up a dark mirror to the opening scene of the novel series. It ties in pretty firmly to what's destined to happen to them all 10,000 years later.
Thanks, Aaron. You’ll be able to start reading ‘Massacre’ tomorrow. In the meantime, you can catch up with what Talos, Cyrion and the other characters did after the Horus Heresy in the Night Lords Omnibus, and see some of that connective tissue Aaron was talking about.
