Kevin Hearne - Tricked - Iron Druid Chronicles

Hounded

This is the best urban/paranormal fantasy I have read in years. Fast paced, funny, clever, and suitably mythic, this is urban fantasy for those worn-out by werewolves and vampires. Fans of Jim Butcher, Harry Connolly, Greg van Eekhout, Ben Aaronovitch, or Neil Gaimans American Gods will take great pleasure in Kevin Hearnes Hounded. Highly recommended.

J OHN O TTINGER III,
editor of Grasping for the Wind

Filled with snarky descriptions comradely characters, thumping action and a plot as stylized as a Renaissance Faire, this tale is outrageously fun.

The Plain Dealer

A superb urban fantasy debut with plenty of quips and zap-pow-bang fighting.

Publishers Weekly (starred review)

Fans of fantasy and urban fantasy will eat this one up. Hounded is a series debut that is absolutely not to be missed!

My Bookish Ways

For both the urban fantasy and nonurban fantasy geekoids, Hounded is a tremendous read. Fun, well-written, and entertaining.

Blood of the Muse

A page-turning and often laugh-out-loud-funny caper through a mix of the modern and the mythic.

A RI M ARMELL , author of The Warlords Legacy

Hexed

Kevin Hearne cranks out action and quips at a frenzied pace in this fun and highly irreverent read.

Publishers Weekly

Hearnes writing is fast paced and spot on. Hexed is steeped in magic and wrapped in awesome. It really doesnt get much better than this!

My Bookish Ways

The humor in Hexed is nonstop. Hard to read without a smile plastered across your face.

Blood of the Muse

Hammered

In this adrenaline-spiked third Iron Druid adventure Hearne provides lots of zippy plotting and rocking action scenes. Fans will be thrilled.

Publishers Weekly

I love, love, love this series, and Hammered is the best so far. Youll be turning pages in warp speed until the final battle, then you wont be able to turn them fast enough.

My Bookish Ways

Tricked is a work of fiction. Names, places, and incidents either are products of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously.

A Del Ray eBook Edition

Copyright 2012 by Kevin Hearne
Excerpt from Trapped by Kevin Hearne copyright 2012 by Kevin Hearne

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Del Rey, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

D EL R EY is a registered trademark and the Del Rey colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.

This book contains an excerpt from the forthcoming book Trapped by Kevin Hearne. This excerpt has been set for this edition only and may not reflect the final content of the forthcoming edition.

eISBN: 978-0-345-53463-7

www.delreybooks.com

Cover illustration: Gene Mollica

Theres a reason the Navajo Code Talkers were so invaluable to the Marines in WWII. Their language, while beautiful, is really difficult to describe, filled with little glottal stops and special characters and mind-shredding verb constructions like the optative-semelfactive. They have no adjectives but rather use their verbs in an adjectival way. To illustrate how complicated it can get, there is no Navajo word for the verb to give but rather eleven different words that vary depending on the size and shape of what is being given. I dont use many words of their language in this book, but Ive done my best to give you a clue about the few youll see below. None of them are verbs. Also note that there are regional differences in pronunciation, just as there are different dialects in English, so some of these pronunciations may differ slightly depending on where you are in the Navajo Nation.

Navajo

ts Hashk = Aht SEH hash KEH (Translates to First Angry, or perhaps First Mad or First Scolder. Its the proper name of one of the First People, Coyote.)

h = unn TEE (Means the Witchery Way, or the Corpse-Poison Way.)

chdii = CHEE dee (A ghost, but specifically the part of ones spirit that wasnt in harmony with the universe at the time of death.)

Din = dih NEH (Means the People. Its what the Navajo call themselves; the term Navajo was slapped on them by the Spanish and it stuck. In this book, art will imitate life; the Din will call themselves Din, and everyone elseincluding Atticuswill call them Navajo.)

Din Bahane = dih NEH bah HAH neh (Means Story of the People. It is the Navajo creation story, parts of which are sung in various ceremonies.)

Hataaii = hah TAH hlee (This translates to singer, a person who sings at ceremonial occasions and creates sandpaintings, important in many rituals from blessing structures to restoring balance in those who have lost it; in crude terms, a medicine man.)

Hzh = hoh ZHOH (This means very good, or great energy, everything spiffy and balanced in the world, which English sometimes translates to blessing. To be honest, it doesnt translate well into English; its just one of those words that are too big for Anglo-Saxon noises.)

Hzhji = hoh ZHOH jee (This means Blessing Way.)

Nlchi = NIL cheh (Literally, air, but in stories this is the name of the wind. And, yeah, that l with the cross through it doesnt really get pronounced like an English l, but its more of a guttural noise behind your molars; using an l is just an expedient approximation.)

Stunning Sandstone Edifices

Tyende = tee YEH in DEH (This mesa is located about ten miles southwest of Kayenta. Incredibly beautiful sandstonejust dont be in a wash after a rain. Get to the high ground FAST, because they arent kidding about flash floods.)

Wolverines of Especial Interest

Faolan = FWAY lawn (This isnt a Navajo name, by the way; were back to the Irish here.)

Tuatha D Danann

Ogma = OG mah (Pronounced og as in log. Its not like the in Aenghus g. That had a diacritical mark over it so youd pronounce it as a long O. This ones short. Ogma is credited with teaching Druids Ogham script, among other things.)

The best trick I ever pulled off was watching myself die. I did a respectable job of it toothe dying, I mean, not the watching.

The key to dying well is to make a final verbal ejaculation that is full of rage and pain but not tainted in the least by squeals of terror or pleas for mercy. This was my fathers wisdomabout the only shred of it that has managed to lodge firmly in my mind all these years. He died while trying to steal somebody elses cows.

It would be an ignominious end today, but before the common era in Ireland, it was honorable and manly to die in a cattle raid, as such theft was called. Before he left to meet his doom, my father must have had some dark premonition about it, because he shared with me all his opinions about dying properly, and I will never forget his final words: A mans supposed to shit himself after he dies, son, not before. Try to remember that, lad, so that when your time comes, you wont make a right girly mess of it. Now fuck off and go play in the bog.