Scourged Read online

  Scourged is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2018 by Kevin Hearne

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Del Rey, an imprint of Random House, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.

  DEL REY and the HOUSE colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

  Names: Hearne, Kevin, author.

  Title: Scourged / Kevin Hearne.

  Description: First edition. | New York : Del Rey, [2018] | Series: The iron druid chronicles ; 9

  Identifiers: LCCN 2017060617 | ISBN 9780345548542 (Hardback) | ISBN 9780345548559 (Ebook)

  Subjects: | BISAC: FICTION / Fantasy / Contemporary. | FICTION / Fantasy / Paranormal. | FICTION / Action & Adventure.

  Classification: LCC PS3608.E264 S36 2018 | DDC 813/.6—dc23

  Ebook ISBN 9780345548559

  randomhousebooks.com

  Cover design: David G. Stevenson

  Cover illustration: © Gene Mollica

  v5.2

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  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Pronunciation Guide

  The Story So Far

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Epilogue

  The Very Last Epilogue

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  By Kevin Hearne

  About the Author

  Pronunciation Guide

  as with other tomes, I provide this merely to help out those who want assistance with some names. You can say the names however you want as you read, of course; there will not be a test at the end, and the point is to enjoy yourself. But just in case you enjoy the flavor of names and words as I do, here are a few new names and some refreshers….

  PoLish

  Andrzej Kasprowicz: AHN dray Kas PRO vich

  Bartosz: BAR tohsh. Common name in Poland. Bonus points if you kinda roll the r.

  Browar Szóstej Dzielnicy: BRO var SHOH-stay JYEL neet suh. Translates to Sixth District Brewery.

  Chłopi: HWOH pee. Title of a Nobel Prize–winning set of novels.

  Kacper Glowa: KATS per GWOH vah. The c is fun; it’s pronounced like ts, so this is not quite Casper.

  Maciej: MAH chay: Technically we have chee-ay for the last bit, but it kinda blends to a single syllable the way most folks pronounce it.

  Piotr Skrobiszewski: PYOH ter SKROH bee SHEV ski

  Władysław Reymont: VWAHD ih SWAHV RAY mont. Nobel Prize–winning author of Chłopi.

  Irish

  Creidhne: CRAY nyah

  Emhain Ablach: EV an Ah BLAH. One of the Irish planes, an isle of apples.

  Flidais: FLI dish

  Goibhniu: GOV new

  Scáthmhaide: SCAH wuh juh. Granuaile’s staff.

  Tuatha Dé Danann: TOO ah day DAN an

  The Story So Far

  atticus O’Sullivan, born in 83 B.C.E. as Siodhachan Ó Suileabháin, has spent much of his long life as a Druid on the run from Aenghus Óg, one of the Tuatha Dé Danann. Aenghus Óg seeks the return of Fragarach, a magical sword that Atticus stole in the second century, and the fact that Atticus has learned how to keep himself young and won’t simply die annoys the heck out of Aenghus Óg.

  When Aenghus Óg finds Atticus hiding in Tempe, Arizona, Atticus makes the fateful decision to fight instead of run, unwittingly setting off a chain of consequences that snowball on him despite his efforts to lie low.

  In Hounded, he gains an apprentice, Granuaile MacTiernan; retrieves a necklace that serves as a focus for Laksha Kulasekaran, an Indian witch; and discovers that his cold iron aura is proof against hellfire. He defeats Aenghus Óg with an assist from the Morrigan, Brighid, and the local pack of werewolves. However, he also severely cripples a witches’ coven that wasn’t exactly benevolent but was protecting the Phoenix metro area from more-menacing groups of predators.

  Hexed, book two, forces Atticus to deal with that, as a rival and much more deadly coven tries to take over the territory of the Sisters of the Three Auroras, and a group of Bacchants tries to establish a foothold in Scottsdale. Atticus cuts deals with Laksha Kulasekaran and Leif Helgarson, a vampire, to earn their help and rid the city of the threats.

  In book three, Hammered, the bills come due for those deals. Both Laksha and Leif want Atticus to go to Asgard and beard the Norse in their mead halls. Putting together a team of badasses, Atticus raids Asgard twice, despite warnings from the Morrigan and Jesus Christ that this would be a terrible idea and it might be best not to keep his word. The carnage is epic, with heavy losses among the Æsir, including the Norns, Thor, and a crippled Odin. The death of the Norns, an aspect of Fate, means the old prophecies regarding Ragnarok are now unchained, and Hel can begin to work with very little opposition from the Æsir. However, a strange coincidence with the Finnish hero Väinämöinen reminds Atticus of a different prophecy, one spoken by the sirens to Odysseus long ago, and he worries that thirteen years hence, the world will burn—perhaps in some altered form of Ragnarok.

  Feeling the heat for his shenanigans and needing time to train his apprentice, Atticus fakes his own death with the help of Coyote in book four, Tricked. Hel does indeed make an appearance, thinking Atticus might like to join her on the dark side since he has killed so many Æsir, but she is brutally rebuffed. Atticus is betrayed by Leif Helgarson and narrowly escapes death at the hands of an ancient vampire named Zdenik but ends the book with a modicum of assurance that he will be able to train Granuaile in anonymity.

  In the novella Two Ravens and One Crow, Odin awakens from his long sleep and forges a truce of sorts with Atticus, enlisting the Druid to take on Thor’s role in Ragnarok, should it come to pass, and perhaps take care of another few things along the way.

  After twelve years of training, Granuaile is ready to be bound to the earth, but in book five, Trapped, it seems as if the Druid’s enemies have been waiting for him to emerge. Atticus must deal with vampires, dark elves, faeries, and the Roman god Bacchus, and messing with one of the Olympians draws the attention of one of the world’s oldest and most powerful pantheons.

  Once Granuaile is a full Druid, Atticus must run across Europe to avoid the bows of Diana and Artemis, who took exception to his treatment of Bacchus and the dryads of Olympus in book five. The Morrigan sacrifices herself to give Atticus a head start, and he is Hunted in book six. Running and fighting his way past a coordinated attempt to bring him down, he makes i
t to England, where he can enlist the help of Herne the Hunter and Flidais, the Irish goddess of the hunt. There he is able to defeat the Olympians and negotiate a fragile alliance against Hel and Loki. At the end of this volume he discovers that his archdruid was frozen in time in Tír na nÓg, and when he retrieves him, his old mentor is in as foul a mood as ever.

  In Shattered, book seven, archdruid Owen Kennedy finds a place among the Tempe Pack and assists Atticus and Granuaile in thwarting a coup attempt in Tír na nÓg against Brighid. Granuaile is sorely tested by Loki in India and is forever changed, and an emissary of the ancient vampire Theophilus strikes down one of Atticus’s oldest friends.

  In the novella A Prelude to War, Atticus consults a tyromancer in Ethiopia to discover how best to strike back at the vampires, while Granuaile meets Loki for the second time—but this time she’s the one laying the ambush.

  Anxious to defeat Theophilus once and for all, Atticus teams up with Leif Helgarson to make sure the ancient evil is Staked in book eight. Granuaile learns that Loki is making deals with dark powers around the world and is consulting an unusual seer about when to begin Ragnarok; she teams up with Perun to defeat an old foe of his and deny Loki his foresight. Owen starts a new Druid’s grove in Flagstaff, receives a magical pair of brass knuckles from Creidhne, and has a distressing encounter with a troll that goes poorly for both of them. The Treaty of Rome is established wherein vampires agree to evacuate Poland and North America west of the Rocky Mountains.

  After the events of Staked, Oberon and Atticus solve a couple of mysteries in and around Portland, detailed in The Purloined Poodle and The Squirrel on the Train, known together as Oberon’s Meaty Mysteries. They befriend a man named Earnest Goggins-Smythe who winds up looking after the hounds while Atticus and Granuaile are out of town, and they also adopt a new doggie as a result of the investigations, a Boston terrier named Starbuck.

  In Besieged, a collection of Iron Druid stories, we learn of several events that bear directly on the story to come. Flidais makes a woeful mistake by taking Perun to a “Cuddle Dungeon” in Edinburgh; Granuaile must enforce the Treaty of Rome against some rogue vampires in Krakow, led by Kacper Glowa; the Druids are called to Tasmania to save Tasmanian devils from extinction, and Owen’s grove participates; and Atticus learns from the Morrigan that Loki is about to begin Ragnarok, prompting him to tell Oberon the story of what happened to his wolverine companion centuries ago.

  Also, along the way, there may have been some talk of poodles and sausages.

  i had a cup of wine with Galileo once. He remains one of the greatest examples of human genius I’ve ever seen over my twenty-one centuries of life, and one of the bravest. Think of the giant, hairy stones he must have had to stand up to the Catholic Church back when they routinely toppled monarchs and killed people for the glory of their god (who let me buy him a shot of whiskey in Arizona once, by the way, and who did not feel particularly glorified by any murders, let alone the ones committed in his name). To look at the whole of Christendom and call bullshit on their geocentrism despite their threats took some iron guts. And he didn’t give a damn that nobody wanted to believe him at first. “I have math,” he told me over the rim of his cup. He gestured to it as he spoke. “And the numbers are like this fine vintage we are enjoying. Verifiable, observable, existing independent of us, and caring not one whit about human faith.”

  Stellar guy, that Galileo! Ha! My puns remain execrable, alas.

  Eventually the Church had to admit that Galileo was right—and admit also, long after his death, that his life and work had been a fulcrum on which the world pivoted. The flourishing of the sciences that used his methods brought many wonders to humanity. Many evils too.

  I am beginning to wonder now if I might not also be such a fulcrum for good and evil, even if I have labored to remain anonymous. I have endeavored for much of my long life to keep myself out of histories, all the while putting more and more history behind me. For much of my two-thousand-plus years, I did not feel I was building to some grand climax or accomplishing anything but my continued survival, but recent events have caused me to reevaluate.

  According to a nightmarish visit from the Morrigan, Ragnarok will begin in the next few days, and it won’t end well for anyone, because apocalypses tend not to include happy endings. Perhaps I can still do something to minimize the damage; no matter what I do, though, it cannot erase the fact that it wouldn’t be happening at all had I not slain the Norns and unchained the Norse pantheon from their destinies. I am almost entirely to blame, and the guilt is already a nine-ton albatross about my neck. I don’t think I’m going to get an easy gig afterward like Coleridge’s Ancient Mariner did either. Telling your tale to random wedding guests is a pretty mild punishment for economy-size cockups.

  It is fortunate that I have a friend able to shoulder such burdens and make me forget for a while that they are there.

  Oberon said as he placed his paws against a bound tree in Tasmania prior to shifting home to Oregon. My Irish wolfhound was expecting a proper feast before I went off to battle gods and monsters and assorted demons from the world’s pantheons, and he’d challenged me to supply a meat bar for him, Orlaith, and Starbuck, our new Boston terrier, in the style of salad bar buffets. We’d adopted Starbuck during a stint of crime-fighting in Portland that Oberon pompously called “The Case of the Purloined Poodle.”

  “The five meat categories will be represented,” I assured him.

 

  “Of course. Didn’t you have a maxim about this?”

 

  “Uh…I think you’re misquoting, Oberon. It’s supposed to be ‘to each according to his need.’ ”

 

  Choosing to keep Oberon carefully insulated from double entendres has proven to be endlessly entertaining. “An excellent job too. It can’t possibly be interpreted to mean anything else but what you meant. Here we go.”

  I shifted us home to our cabin near the McKenzie River in the Willamette National Forest, and Oberon immediately shouted mentally to the other hounds once we arrived.

 

  Starbuck’s higher-pitched voice replied immediately with his limited vocabulary. he said.

  Orlaith added, and both of them exploded through the doggie door to greet us, Orlaith trailing behind because she was very pregnant and close to delivering.

  I had to spend a while getting slobbered on and trying to satisfy three dogs with only two hands while they demanded details on the meat and gravy bar. I confessed that I didn’t have sufficient information to provide details.

  Oberon was incredulous.

  “All the meats? Oberon, that’s impossible.”

 

  “It is. At least in the time I have allotted to me. Maybe it could be a squad goal for later. But right now we have to limit ourselves to what we can pick up in Eugene. Is Earnest here?”

  Earnest Goggins-Smythe was our live-in dogsitter, whom we’d been depending on rather heavily in the past few weeks, especially as Orlaith’s delivery approached. He had a
standard poodle named Jack and a boxer named Algernon, or Algy for short, and they’d remained inside with him.

  Orlaith said.

  “I should probably say hi and make sure he’s okay with Jack and Algy participating in this smorgasbord. But after that, would you three like to come with me to Eugene to go shopping for the meats, so you can advise me on what to get?”

  Orlaith said.

  Starbuck shouted.

  Oberon said.

  “Do you want to go or not?”

 

  “Okay, give me a minute to talk to Earnest.” After confirming that Jack and Algy could participate in at least some cautious meaty debauchery, my hounds piled into the blue ’54 Chevy pickup I’d acquired during an escapade that Oberon had dubbed “The Squirrel on the Train.” Oberon looked out the back window at the truck bed.

 

  “It’s more than enough, Oberon.”

 

  “I’m not promising anything at this point beyond an assortment of meats and gravies. And maybe a story about a famous hound for the drive, since you’re way too pumped up right now.”

  Orlaith’s ears perked up.

  “More of a tiny hound—a beagle, in fact.”