Dreamwater Read Online Free Page A

white on the right forearm, and replied with a kick that knocked her off her feet.
    Lightning pain streaked through his left shoulder. He stumbled and fell to his knees. Something sharp had pierced his flesh.
    Impossible. The armor protects me . He shook his head, tried to unclench his jaw, and remembered the broken patch. His armor was useless.
    Grinding his teeth, he pitched forward onto his belly, freeing himself with a cry. Blood trickled down his back and chest. He rose unsteadily and turned to see the Spiked One looking down at him, the great spikes on his elbow dripping with Jun’s blood. The Spiked One smirked.
    “This isn’t your fight!” Jun yelled. “The armor doesn’t fit you. You can’t fight on behalf of another!”
    The fight ceased for a moment. Seeing his chance, Jun lunged at the empty armor, taking hold of it. For a moment, it was his.
    The Spiked One grabbed and pulled him off, throwing him to the ground. Jun sprawled in the dust, his breath knocked out of him. Through blurry eyes he saw the Spiked One drag a youngling forward, an immaculate white with dark dots on his helm. From the Spiked One’s clan for sure, Jun thought grimacing as he tried to pull himself upright. Damn him.
    Now he watched as the youngling shed his white armor and hooks flexed like fingers from the vertebrae on his pale back. No scars, no ribs sticking out. A protected one.
    Jun stood hunched over, panting, feeling light-headed.
    The Spiked One raised the sky-blue armor and placed it over the young one’s head, fitting it over the shoulders and back, and the hooks clicked as they slid into place and attached themselves.
    The crowd, bloodied and covered in dust, began to disperse.
    Jun straightened, pain stabbing through his shoulder.
    “You,” said the Spiked One in a grating voice, turning to him. Jun watched transfixed the Spiked One’s helm bristling with white shafts, the enormous spiked shoulder pads, the stern face. “You, nameless, should know better than to challenge worthy ones for an armor.”
    Oh, for Elvereth’s sake! “I’m not nameless. I have a name, it’s Jun!”
    “That’s not a name for a Shell,” said the Spiked One, “and you know it.”
    Jun glared at him, remembering the Shell's name: Noon Sky White.
    “And this thing you are wearing in the stead of an armor,” continued Noon Sky White, “is an embarrassment to us all.”
    Jun instinctively drew back, but the Spiked One towered over him and, grabbing Jun’s half-torn armor, pulled it apart. With a sickening crunch, it tore more, exposing his injured shoulder.
    Noon Sky White snorted. “As I said, a disgrace. You are a disgrace. I’ve never seen you dune-side at this time before. Seems your cowardice finally gave way to a death wish. Good decision.”
    Jun pulled at the pieces of his armor, mind running through ideas of how to put it back together. Without it he was as good as dead.
    “Greet the birds for me,” Noon Sky White tossed over his shoulder as he turned to go shelter-side.
    Jun clenched his fists. “Lizards’ innards!” He started as his shell armor ripped further, cracks going all the way down to his tailbone. His hooks were already disconnecting, withdrawing, giving up. He stared at the pieces blindly for a moment, then threw them down in disgust and stomped on them.
    He bent over, hands braced on his knees, and breathed deeply.
    He was done for.
    When he looked up again, he saw evening had turned a deep blue and a full moon silvered the dunes.
    Jun slapped his forehead. “Aima!”
    He took off toward the pond, parting the shoulder-high grass as he passed. Long streaks of fiery pain radiated from his left shoulder down his arm and back, slowing him down.
    Running at dusk without a carapace . How stupid that is? Vulnerable and exposed, like a new-born, he ran beneath the watchful sky.
    Serves you right , he scolded himself. You shouldn’t have stopped, shouldn’t have become involved in that fight when you saw the