The charmer that Worm had targeted did a hip feint and reverse, and with long legs jumped well out of the way.
The crowd cheered the clean miss.
Worm regrouped in the center ring, rattles buzzing even louder. The four women then took turns rushing at the flat, scaly head, drawing gaping strikes, and as they dodged and ducked the fang points, gasps rose from the audience. If there was so much as a stumble, if there was the slightest hesitation, one of the lovely women was going to die before their eyes.
Every time the snake struck, it extended itself to its full length on the ground. As it lay outstretched, after a dozen or more futile launches, a pair of the charmers ran right up the middle of its back. The one in front held a contraption made of chain link and padlocks. Before the snake could draw its body back beneath itself, the women had their long legs astraddle its neck, and with their combined body weight drove its chin into the dirt.
The crowd jumped to its feet, cheering.
The charmer in front slipped the chain muzzle over Worm’s broad snout, the muscles in her back jumping as she dug her heels in the ground and hauled back hard to seat the device behind his eyes. She locked the muzzle in place and dismounted with a flourish, pirouetting away hand in hand with her sister charmer.
They got out of range just in time.
Unable to open its mouth and free its lethal weapons, Worm went crazy, rolling and thrashing like a flesh-and-blood cyclone. It took many minutes for this display of animal power and fury to wind down. When the great snake had finally exhausted itself, with help of four burly roustabouts, the charmers dragged the defeated Worm back to its cage by the tail.
As the cage rolled away, the carny master vaulted over the center ring’s bumper and cried, “Bring on the swampies!”
Leeloo had never seen a real swampie before, only heard tell. How dirty they were. How bad they smelled. How bastard mean they were. She was surprised at their small stature. They were heavily built for their size, though, with stout, stumpy legs, wide, blocky hips, stocky torsos, thick arms and hands, and big, bony heads. The weight of the bone of their foreheads and brows gave them all, male and female, a perpetually sour, scowling appearance.
Even as they tumbled and rolled around the ring to sprightly, upbeat music of clarinets and cymbals, there was nothing playful or lighthearted in their performance. Somersaults, cartwheels, handstands, headstands, mutie pyramids, all were delivered with the same dour distaste.
Crecca let the mirthless gamboling continue for a few more minutes, then stepped back into the center of the ring and waved his arms. The swampies stopped tumbling and circled around him. “Time for some juggling!” he announced. “Not red-hot coals. Not flaming torches. Not razor-sharp swords. But these…”
He held aloft in either hand a clutch of small, round, flat-black-painted metal objects.
“Frag grens,” Leeloo said. “Those are frag grens.”
“Probably not real, though,” Dean told her.
As if the carny master had heard the words, he pulled the pin on one of the grens and lobbed the armed explosive toward the tent’s only exit. The crowd ducked…as if ducking would do any good. A roustabout at the exit caught the grenade and pitched it outside.
“Three, two, one…” Crecca counted aloud.
The ground under Leeloo rocked from the explosion.
“Now, let’s have some real fun,” the carny master said. With that, he pulled the pin on a grenade, then tossed the gren one way and the pin the other. Swampies on the opposite sides of the circle caught the thrown objects. The one who’d grabbed the gren quickly flipped it to the one who had the pin. That swampie put the pin back in, disarming the explosive.
“Get the picture?” Crecca asked his audience. Then he started yanking pins and throwing the armed grens and pins around the circle. In a moment or two, all five were flying back and forth.
It made Leeloo dizzy to watch.
And she was plenty scared, too.