Free The Gathering Storm by H. K. Varian

crops—even heal the sick. But one thousand years ago, an evilwarlock came into being. He knew that to achieve absolute power, he would need to harness the abilities of the Changers.”
    â€œHow could he do that?” Mack asked.
    â€œThe darkest magic imaginable,” Jiichan said as a heaviness settled over his shoulders. He suddenly looked older to Mack than he ever had before. “The warlock forged an iron horn, carved with ancient runes we thought had been lost to history. The evil that went into creating the horn and gathering the runes is unthinkable, but when he was finished, the warlock had made the most powerful weapon in the history of magic.”
    â€œWhat could the horn do?”
    â€œIt bound the Changers to him, putting them at the mercy of his will. Across the land our armies fell with a single blast. The horn forced them to turn against normal humans—destroy their food, burn their homes, take their lives. Dark days followed. The darkest days our world has ever seen. Changers were powerless against the warlock’s horn. There was little happiness and less hope.”
    Jiichan paused to let the boys take in his words.
    â€œIt wasn’t until four young Changers stood against the warlock that he fell,” he continued. “Four young Changers, untested and unproven, found themselves immune to the horn’s call. Today they are the First Four, the leaders of all Changer-kind.”
    â€œThey’re still alive?” Mack broke in. “That was a thousand years ago!”
    Jiichan smiled enigmatically. “You have much still to learn about our kind.”
    â€œWhat happened to the warlock’s horn?” Darren asked.
    â€œThe horn could not be destroyed, so it was locked away, never to be used again. And that, they thought, would be the end of it. Life would go back to normal.”
    â€œBut that didn’t happen, did it?” asked Mack. He’d watched enough superhero movies to have a pretty good idea of what happened next.
    Jiichan shook his head. “The damage had been done. Humans no longer trusted Changers. They’d seen what our powers could do, and no promises or assurances could calm them. Instead, humans decided that Changers must be hunted down and then erased fromhistory. We became myths, folklore, the boogeymen in their children’s stories. And that’s why we live as we do now—lives of secrecy, spent in the shadows.”
    Mack clenched his fists. “That’s not fair !” he said hotly. “It wasn’t our fault.”
    Jiichan smiled sadly. “Sometimes the concept of magic is just too much for ordinary humans to believe. As far as people knew, Changers had tried to destroy them. They then had to live knowing we could destroy them, if we wanted to. I can’t blame them. Fear makes people act in desperate ways.”
    â€œWhy are you telling us this?” Darren asked suddenly. “All this stuff happened—what, a thousand years ago? Why does it matter now?”
    Jiichan regarded Mack and Darren in silence. At last, he spoke. “The horn is gone,” he said. “Stolen by a new warlock who goes by the name of Auden Ironbound—stronger and even more driven than his ancestor, who began the first age of destruction.
    â€œEven now, at this very moment, Auden Ironbound and his army approach,” Jiichan continued. “ That’s why it matters.”
    â€œHere?” Mack asked incredulously. “Auden Ironbound is coming here ? To Willow Cove?”
    â€œWillow Cove is the final fortress against him,” Jiichan explained. “This is where the First Four live. If they can’t stop Auden Ironbound, no one can. He means to defeat the Four and then take the world for himself.”
    Mack jumped up from the couch. Even though it was the middle of the night, he had way too much nervous energy to sit still for a moment longer. “The First Four live here ?”