Shattered Read online

  Shattered is a work of fiction. Names, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Copyright © 2014 by Kevin Hearne

  All rights reserved.

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

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

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Hearne, Kevin.

  Shattered / Kevin Hearne.

  pages cm. — (The Iron Druid Chronicles)

  ISBN 978-0-345-54848-1 (hardback) — ISBN 978-0-345-54849-8 (ebook)

  1. Druids and druidism—Fiction. 2. Mythology, Celtic—Fiction.

  3. Gods—Fiction. 4. Fantasy fiction. I. Title.

  PS3608.E264S53 2014

  813′.6—dc23

  2014012850

  www.delreybooks.com

  Jacket design: David G. Stevenson

  Jacket illustration: © Gene Mollica

  v3.1

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Pronunciation Guide

  Iron Druid Chronicles

  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

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Epilogue

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Other Books by This Author

  About the Author

  PRONUNCIATION GUIDE

  I think it’s cool if you read the unusual names in my books however you want. There won’t be a test afterward and I’m not going to withhold a Twinkie from you if you pronounce any of them incorrectly. You’re supposed to have fun here, after all, and it’s usually not fun if someone tells you that you’re doing it wrong. But I like to provide these in case you want to master those names and enjoy the Druids’ globetrotting. So here we go; caps-lock bits indicate stressed syllables.…

  OLD NORSE

  Erlendr = EHR len dur (Not quite AIR lend ur, but close. A bit more like a short e on that first syllable.)

  Freydís = FRAY deece

  Hildr = HILL dur (Female name still used today in Iceland and Norway, but in modern spelling they go ahead and indicate the last vowel, like Hildur.)

  Ísólfr = EES ol vur (The first syllable should rhyme with fleece, not ease. The o is a long oh, you know. And an f in the middle is kinda soft, so it sounds like a v.)

  Krókr Hrafnson = KROH kur HRABn son (Hrafn = raven. Difficult to get this right in English. There’s that aspirated Hr at the beginning and then the problematic fn. In modern Icelandic it’s pronounced like a bn or simply a b, but we’re unsure precisely how it was spoken in Old Norse. In the old days it may have been HRAV son. From poetry scanning we know that there wasn’t a vowel sound between the f and n, so this is supposed to be a two-syllable word, but maybe with a hint of n in the middle.)

  Oddrún = ODD rune (Female name still used today in Iceland. Bonus points if you roll the r a bit.)

  Skúfr = SKOO vur (Again with the soft f thing.)

  IRISH

  Creidhne = CRANE ya

  Flidais = FLIH dish

  Fuilteach = FWIL tah

  Goibhniu = GUV new

  Granuaile = GRAWN ya WALE

  Fragarach = FRAH gah rah

  Luchta = LOOKED ah

  Orlaith = OR lah

  Scáthmhaide = SKAH wad juh

  Siodhachan = SHE ya han

  HINDI

  Dabāva = da BAHV (Translates into pressure or compression. Last vowel is dropped in pronunciation.)

  IRON DRUID CHRONICLES

  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 sought the return of Fragarach, a magical sword that Atticus had stolen in the second century, and the fact that Atticus had learned how to keep himself young and wouldn’t simply die annoyed the heck out of him.

  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 snowballs on him, despite his efforts to lie low.

  In Hounded, he gains an apprentice, Granuaile, 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’d 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 the book ends with a modicum of assurance that Atticus 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 it seems as if the Druid’s enemies have been waiting for him to emerge in book five, Trapped. Atticus must deal with vampires, dark elves, faeries, and the Roman god Bacchus, and messing with the Olympian 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, wh
o took exception to his treatment of Bacchus and the dryads of Olympus in book five. The Morrigan sacrifices herself to give him a head start and Atticus is Hunted in book six. Running and fighting his way past a coordinated attempt to bring him down, he makes it to England, where he can enlist the help of Herne the Hunter and Flidais, the Irish goddess of the hunt. There Atticus 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 Atticus retrieves him, his old mentor is in as foul a mood as ever.

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

  Few things trigger old memories so quickly as authority figures from our youth. I’m not saying those memories are necessarily good ones; they’re simply old and tend to cast us back into roles we thought we grew out of long ago. Sometimes the memories are warm and blanket us like a mother’s love. More often, however, they have the sting of hoarfrost, which bites at first, then numbs and settles in the bones for a deep, extended chill.

  The ancient man who was pushing himself up into a sitting position in front of me triggered very few memories of the warm sort. Apart from being brilliant and magically gifted, my archdruid had frequently been abusive and had made few friends during his life—a life that, until recently, I thought had ended millennia ago. After he bound me to the earth prior to the Common Era, I’d seen him only a couple more times before we drifted apart, and I’d always assumed he’d died, like almost everyone else I knew from my youth. But for reasons unknown, the Morrigan had frozen him in time in Tír na nÓg, and now he was about to confront the fact of his time travel—with, I might add, flecks of spittle and bacon around the edges of his wrinkled lips.

  I hope that if I ever travel two thousand years into the future, there will still be bacon.

  His voice, a sort of perpetually phlegmy growl, barked a question at me in Old Irish. He’d have to learn English quickly if he wanted to talk to anyone besides the Tuatha Dé Danann and me. “How long was I on that island, Siodhachan? You still look pretty young. By the looks of ye, it can’t have been more than three or four years.”

  Oh, was he in for a surprise. “I will tell you in exchange for something I’d like to know: your name.”

  “My name?”

  “I’ve never called you anything but Archdruid.”

  “Well, it was right that ye should, ye wee shite. But now that you’re grown a bit and a full Druid, I suppose I can tell ye. I’m Eoghan Ó Cinnéide.”

  I grinned. “Ha! If you Anglicize that, it’s Owen Kennedy. That will work out just fine. I’ll call Hal and get you some ID with that name.”

  “What are ye talking about?”

  “That’s a question you’ll be asking a lot. Owen—I hope you don’t mind me calling you that, because I can’t walk around calling you Archdruid—you’ve been on that island for more than two thousand years.”

  He scowled. “Don’t be tickling me ass with a feather, now; I’m asking seriously.”

  “I’m answering seriously. The Morrigan put you on the slowest of the Time Islands.”

  Owen studied my face and saw that I was in earnest. “Two thousand?”

  “That’s right.”

  He flailed about for something to hold on to; the number was too huge to register, and the stark fact that he had been uprooted and could never go back to his old earth was a deep, dark well into which he could fall forever. He opened his mouth twice and closed it again after uttering a half-formed vowel. I waited patiently as he worked through it, and finally he latched on to me, having nothing else in front of him. “Well, then, you were on one of those islands too. She must have set us there around the same time.”

  “No, I didn’t get to skip all that time in an eyeblink. I lived through it. And I’ve learned a few things you never taught me.”

  He grunted in disbelief. “Now I know you’re pulling me cock. You’re telling me that you’re more than two thousand years old?”

  “That’s what I’m telling you. You might as well brace yourself. The world is far bigger and far different than it was when you left it. You’ve never even heard of Jesus Christ or Allah or Buddha or the New World or bloody buffalo wings. It’s going to be one shock after the other.”

  “I don’t know what a shock is.”

  Of course he didn’t. He’d never heard of electricity. I’d thrown in a modern Irish word with my Old Irish.

  “But your lack of hair is certainly a surprise,” he said, gesturing at my close-cropped skull. It was starting to fill in from when I’d had to shave it all off—a consequence of a recent encounter with some Fae who’d tried to chew off my scalp—but to Owen’s eyes it must look like an unnatural cosmetic decision. “And what in nine worlds happened to the rest of your beard? Ye don’t look like a man. Ye look like a lad who had a rat die on his chin.”

  “It works for me,” I said, dismissing it. “But look, Owen, I’m wondering if you can do me a favor.”

  “Do I owe ye one?”

  “You’d still be on that island if it weren’t for me, so I’d say so.”

  My archdruid huffed and wiped at his mouth, finally dislodging the bacon bits that had rested there. “What is it?”

  I raised my right sleeve over my shoulder, revealing the ravaged tattoo at the top of my biceps. “A manticore destroyed my ability to shape-shift back to human, so I can’t shift to any of my animal forms until it gets fixed. Would you mind touching it up?”

  He scowled and flared up. “I fecking taught ye how to tame a manticore, didn’t I? Don’t try to tell me I didn’t! That isn’t my fault.”

  “I didn’t say—”

  “And I remember ye complaining about it too.” He affected a falsetto to mock me. “ ‘When am I ever going to meet a manticore?’ ye said. ‘Why do I have to learn Latin? When are we going to learn about sex rituals?’ ”

  “Hey, I never said that!”

  “Ye didn’t have to. There was a year ye couldn’t sneak up on anyone because your knob would peek around the corner first and everyone would say, ‘Here comes Siodhachan!’ and then the rest of ye would follow. Ye remember that?”

  Desperate to return the conversation to more recent scars—a much safer topic than my uncomfortable puberty—I said, “The manticore struck first, and taming him was never an option.”

  “It’s always an option.”

  “No, it’s not. You weren’t there, and you’ve never had to deal with manticore venom. It requires all of your attention to break it down, trust me. And once I managed to do it, I was so weak that I’d never have been able to survive another dose. I was severely wounded and unable to confront him without leaving myself open to another shot. Any attempt to tame him would have been fatal. I was lucky to get out of there alive.”

  “All right, fine, but why me? Can’t ye have some other Druid do it? I have some catching up to do.”

  I carefully neglected to mention that he and I were two of only three remaining Druids in the world. Time enough for that later. “That’s true, you do. We have a lot to talk about, and I have a new language to teach you if you’re going to get along. And the other Druid I’d trust to do this is busy working on another project.”

  Granuaile was training her new wolfhound, Orlaith, to speak and was also taking care of Oberon in the meantime. I didn’t want her talking to Owen anyway, until I’d had the chance to teach him modern manners. If he spoke to her the way he spoke to me, there would be blood in short order, most of it his.

  My archdruid winced, sighed, and rubbed at his temples as if he had a major headache. “Dagda fuck me, but I need something to drink. I don’t suppose ye know where we can find something besides water?”

  “Sure. I’ll buy. Can you walk yet?” I glanced at his legs, which had been broken in the stress of removing him from the Time Island. He’d had some time to heal here, under the ministrations of the healer Fand, Manannan Mac Lir’s magic bacon, and hi
s own healing powers, but I didn’t know if it was enough.

  “I think so.” He nodded. “Bones bind quickly, but it’s the bruising to your muscles that always takes time. We’ll walk slow and drink fast.”

  He leaned on me a bit for support and walked gingerly, but we made it off the barge and into the boat I’d taken out to the island. Once we reached the riverbank, it would be a short walk to a tree tethered to Ireland. We’d be able to shift to someplace with plenty of potables on tap and a comfortable spot to talk. In a strange way, I was looking forward to it. It felt strangely empowering to know something my archdruid didn’t already know.

  Somebody didn’t want us to have that talk, however. No sooner had the boat ground into the gravel of the bank than an angry, high-pitched bark greeted us from downriver.

  “Oi!” A hopping-mad Fir Darrig bounded toward us—literally hopping and literally mad, as evidenced by the bulging of his eyes and the belligerent brandishing of his shillelagh—intent on accosting us at the least and teeing off on our skulls at the worst. Rat-faced, red-coated, and only three feet tall, Fir Darrigs have a five-foot vertical leap and a quick hand with the shillelagh; their single-digit IQs couple with that to make them think they are eight feet tall and four times as fearsome.

  Usually you can just toss something shiny at them and they will stop to investigate, because they’re greedy little goblins and tend to hoard anything that appears valuable. I had a quarter in my pocket and I lobbed it at him, making sure it caught the sun, but his eyes never wavered. He was determined to take a swing at me for some reason.

  Another one bounced out of the trees downriver, spied us, and leapt forward. “Oi!” A second later, three more appeared. “Oi! Oi! Oi!”

  “That’s fecking strange,” my archdruid said. And he was right. Fir Darrigs are typically solitary. You’d see two of them slamming their fists into each other every so often, which was actually their mating ritual, and if they didn’t kill each other first, eventually they’d slam other things into each other and carry on the species. I’d never seen three together before, and here we had five coming at us.