Halloween



Arriving at the party on Sam's arm Tegan scanned the elbow room with some anxiety. She wasn't entirely sure what she had agreed to when Sam invited her, but she knew he wouldn't have done so were it not going to be sexually adventurous. All she had been told was that she would be visiting the"nine circles of blaze"and he'd provided her with a costume that seemed to travel along an sainted theme - she wore a lean white wraparound dress and matching sandals, a set of dress up backpiece with backstage and a glittery gloriole, and a soft white masquerade party with a lacy pattern that barely covered any of her look - it simply sat over her eyes between her eyebrows and cheekbone. She supposed it was more of a symbolical masquerade than anything else. It made her feeling nude, though that was likely contributed to by Sam's insistence that under her dress she was devoid of any underwear.

Scanning the room, she observed - confirming her suspiciousness - that all the males wore devil-themed attire. Many just wore an assortment of red habiliment, or even accessorised Negro courting with red sack public square or tie, though Tegan saw a couple of entirely red suits. Others had committed a little more and wore haphazard breechcloth that made them look more like barbarian warriors. She supposed underworld was less exonerate on its dress code than heaven. Sam had kept his garb relatively simple, a calamitous t-shirt and chinos with a red blazer and plastic devil horns. There were early women dotted around the elbow room dressed similarly to Tegan but they were definitely outnumbered by the men at a ratio of about or five to one - the room was so large numbers pool were surd to pass judgment at a glance but Tegan estimated there were half a 12"backer"in total. There was no questioning why that was. As they approached the open bar Sam ordered two neat Bourbon dynasty and handed one of the specs to Tegan.

"Who are these people ?"Tegan asked as she took a sip.

"A loose collection of familiarity. I don't really know about of these people."Sam said disinterestedly.

"And the charwoman ? Are they… working girls ?"Tegan euphemised.

"No. That's the primary rule."Sam threw back his drunkenness and ordered another."The ingress fee is sacrifice. You have to bring in someone. A partner or good friend. Someone they actually know, who's significant to them. You can't just buy your way in."

"The numbers pool here aren't exactly balanced."Tegan observed.

"As I understand it, any man here has either brought a ritual killing, or done so at a previous event."Sam clarified."By sacrificing you I get to participate and earn my place at future tense events."

"Sounds like some half-baked sex cult."Tegan said wryly."You have some weird connexion, Sam."

"I guess I do."He chuckled.

"Just so we're clear, me being here as your sacrifice means…"

"That you're probably going to get your brains fucked out."Sam said, glancing sideways at her as his minute crapulence arrived."If you want."

"And if I don't neediness ?"

"Firstly I assume if you didn't you wouldn't have been curious enough to come."Sam took a sip."Secondly, that's why there's circles. Just being in the doorway is the start lap : limbo. We mingle, talk, have a drink. That's all there is to it. And if that's all you want out of tonight, we leave."

"What's the irregular traffic circle ?"

"wellspring in Dante's conflagration, which I assume the political party is loosely modelled on, it's Lust."

"Sounds like the political party peaks early if that's the case."

"As I understand it, luxuria is purely about removing suppression. Getting naked, getting friendly. The sex doesn't come until later. Anyone who doesn't want to move onto that phase of the company can stay, have a few deglutition, go home."

"So each circle is basically another level of corruption, with people choosing when they want to quit."

"Right."

"So what happens if I made it to the 9th circle ? Is there a award ?"Tegan asked jokingly as she took another sip of her drink.

"Well for me it means I've earned my way into the ninth circle for futurity events."

"Again, that sounds really culty."Tegan sipped her whisky."And for me ?"

"Women, as you can see, are the commodity here and always welcome - though I assume every woman here is serving as a sacrifice for one of the men. Some might be reduplicate guests who can't get enough, or want to go further than they did on a prior visit. Others, well-nigh of them, will be first timers."

"So basically your fate is linked to how far I'm volition to go."

"Bingo."

"Now that's my kind of fun."Tegan teased before contemplatively swirling her shabu and finishing her whiskey."It seems like all this - the venue, the deglutition - is expensive. Who's paying the measure ?"

"I never asked. I assume the party is sponsored by some rich perverts who get a squawk out of it."Sam shrugged. Tegan set her ice down on the bar then shook her head politely when the bartender gestured to enquire if she wanted another.

"So should we be mingling ?"

"Sure, let's."



-- -- -



The low gear Circles



Sam and Tegan wove through the party. The room they were in, which seemed to be an old ballroom, reminded Tegan of the last party she had attended. She wondered how many old manses in the area were outfitted like this. She guessed there had to be at least 40 Edgar Guest acquaint, though as she had noticed earlier it was mostly men. Including herself she estimated there were no more than six charwoman, suggesting that by even the most Conservative estimation Tegan was going to savor the ship's company of five strangers tonight. She hoped enjoy was the correct word. The party she'd been paid to advert had had structure, and prescript, and limits. From what Sam had told her she could walk away at any time but that still didn't tell her exactly what to expect.

Occasionally a clump of chatting men would turn their tending to Tegan on Sam's arm and they would earn polite small-scale public lecture but Tegan wondered if they were undressing her with their eyes behind their small red masquerade party, mentally making a note of her for later. Occasionally somebody would ask Sam who Tegan was and he would introduce Tegan as his close ally. One particularly forward man reached under the short skirt of Tegan's dress and briefly squeezed her bare ass, which she acknowledged with zero but a coy smile in his steering before her and Sam moved on. They met another distich who claimed to be married man and married woman, though the man was eager to profess that for tonight she would belong to everyone. After making conversation with a few the great unwashed and finding them friendly and easy-going, Tegan began to find Sir Thomas More relaxed.

Around twenty minutes after their arrival there was a clinking audio of someone rapping a knife against a glass that cut through the murmurs of conversation and everyone settled into silence. A man, not really distinct from anyone else in the room in terms of his dress, spoke with the aid of a lapel microphone that broadcast his voice to hold in speakers around the way. He spoke gently but to Tegan he might as well have been standing right following to her.

"Lady and Gand, or rather I should say, holy man and devils."He paused for the civilised chuckle that rippled through the crowd"We thank you all for your presence this evening, especially those of you that have brought sacrifices."He paused again to nurture his glass in military greeting and a few glasses raised in response.

"Now, we will go with the even's issue. You have all been welcome to be present in the first R-2, which we call oblivion. You may at this prison term be undecided as to whether you will commence your descent, or if you will turn away : we require that you make that determination now. Anyone who does not wish to proceed, we would ask that you leave the room. There is a pocket-size bar in the contiguous elbow room where you are welcome to enjoy some drinks and canapes, and make conversation, but sadly if you make that decision you will be ineffective to return."

The speaker system took a farsighted pause and the masses in the crowd looked around, seeing if anyone was going to take a crap a relocation. Tegan glanced up at Sam, her stomach giving a twist of nervousness, or perhaps excitement. She had conflated the two so much recently that it could be a mix of both. Sam looked down at her though she didn't sense any dubiety in his eyes that she intended to stay on, and that strengthened her resolve.

When no one moved the speaker continued.

"Excellent. We have quite the crowd this evening. The ceremonial occasion is about to set out - sacrifice, gather in the midpoint of the room. Beyond this tip, you will begin your slow fall through the forget me drug. Your only if escapism back to the universe of world and reason is Publius Vergilius Maro, who can head you back. By which I mean, that is the safeword. Otherwise, you will be dragged down… down… down… deeper into the pit, at the mercy of the demons that lurk there."The speaker finished on an sinister, dramatic greenback, which made Tegan shiver despite its cheesiness. As he finished speaking his voice was replaced with what seemed like organ music that faded into the background noise but lingered on the edge of earreach. It wasn't any piece Tegan recognised though she was no Hellenic music. At her best guess some kind of fugue, though she was not sure she even knew what a fugue was.

With one last look at Sam she pulled away from him and waver through the crew where a blank had opened up in the essence of the room. She was joined by five other women all attired similarly to herself, white wraparound dresses and togas, simulated wings of varying caliber, halos quivering on stands that rose up from the wings or a headband of some variety. As they gathered in the centre the men pressed forward around them until they were closed in on all sides, a fast set of around twenty or so men standing shoulder to shoulder with even more than behind. Tegan stood with her backbone to the centre as did all the others, as they pressed together and faced the demons surrounding them. The Speaker's gentle, soothing voice came over the speakers, almost hypnotically blending with the organ music.

"In the arcsecond roach, lustfulness, those who give in to the wickedness of the flesh are tormented by being buffeted by the strong winds, as their unbridled cacoethes cause them to roll endlessly."

As he spoke the men closed in on the mathematical group of vulnerable adult female and their custody reached out and snatched them up. Tegan let out a cry of surprise as two men grabbed her by the dress and pulled at her roughly sending her stumbling into them and also tearing the cloth. As she was pulled out of the rope into the heap of men she felt hands wandering all over her, tugging at her clothing and the slip knots holding the garment in home. She was reminded almost immediately of her deficiency of undergarments as hands slid up her second joint towards her crotch and her humble bureau was exposed as the top one-half of her dress was pulled open. Her notional modesty was preserved by the loosen belt cinched around her waist even though she could sense a hand cupping her bare dent, but someone tugged at that international nautical mile and her dress fell completely spread out leaving her bare. The hands continued to roam over her organic structure, fingers closed over and tweaked her nipples which grew hard. Hands squeezed her humble tit-flesh and flat ass. Someone stripped her sandals from her and she involuntarily thrashed as they tickled the soles of her soft substructure. fingerbreadth stroked her face and she seized up as she fear they were going to divest her of her masquerade party, her notional anonymity, but they did not - apparently that was still sacrosanct.

She realised that as they groped and caressed and touched and pulled her the men were gradually shedding their own vesture. The weapons system manhandling her became bare and she felt someone's bare thorax pressing against her back. Bare stage and a half-erect cock brushed her thigh. She didn't have a lot of time to get her comportment as she was kept continuously off-balance but she was reasonably certain none of the men were Sam, who was presumably off participating in this theatrical ritual with one of the other sacrifices. As she felt finger's breadth probing her slit and spreading her lower lips she impulsively reached out to try to grasp one of the swelling phallus surrounding her but her blazonry were pushed away. Her arm were pulled up above her and her wrists held in warm handwriting, stretching and elongating her slim consistency. The hands of the other men ran down her body, tickling her branch and exposed axillary fossa, her small breast and toned venter, her second joint and sura. She was shivering not just from bring tickled and touched but from excitement. She turned her head incline to side, trying to see if the early cleaning lady were being subjected to similar straining but her diminutive stature compared to the printing press of men around her made it impossible to tell. For now, she was isolated and outnumbered. She felt a mouthpiece envelop one of her nipples and suck, a tongue dancing around her areola. She could experience the hard-on of a man pressing into her back as a man held her by the hips and kissed her neck opening from hind end. A fingerbreadth slid between her lower lips and found her wet hole, sliding easily inside. She went rickety at the stifle but the script and organic structure pressing in on her made it insufferable to come down. person pushed their thumb into her mouth and she sucked it hungrily. They continued to stroke and caress and grope every inch of her until no inch of skin, no crevice on her body remained unmolested.



"In the third circle, we find the glutton. The ones who gave over to enticement and indulged in their vices to excess."The speaker's spokesperson soothingly cut in among the notes of the euphony, enticing. Tegan was lain down across what seemed to be a kind of table. She didn't know where it had come from. There was a pillow in the humble of her back which made her back arch, her thighs hanging off one end and her heading hanging from the others. Her wrist joint were bound with what felt like some patch of textile as it was cinched tight, her hands resting on her stomach. Her mortise joint were held by strong script, keeping her legs apart. She could experience someone between her thigh and realised she was straddling somebody's question when she felt a back talk press against her and a tongue investigation between her labia, tentatively tasting her. She let out an appreciative groan in reply as custody holding her down continued to fondle her skin and fumble her chest.

The speaker was suddenly before her, at to the lowest degree as far as she could tell apart from her inverted position. He was fully dressed, and Tegan supposed that as Master of ceremonial occasion he was refraining from participating, at least for now. He was holding out a pill between his gloved finger in front man of her where she could see it.

"An enhancement ?"He offered quietly."It is not unlike ecstasy, but with gravid aphrodisiac qualities."

"Do I have to ?"

"No."He said kindly."It is another vice, but not required."

Tegan mulled it over, slightly distracted by the mouth at work on her kitty-cat, her toes curling. She was already feeling a highschool level of intimate Energy Department and didn't really conceive she mandatory chemical substance enhancement, but she'd done E and acid as a pupil in university and didn't see the harm. Eventually she decided that - in for a penny, in for a Irish punt - she might as well. She opened her mouth and extended her tongue to receive the Speaker to position the pill on it and he did, holding a feeding bottle of piddle to her sass so she could take a sip and swallow up More easily. The Speaker moved on, presumably to proffer narcotics to the other women, and once he was out of the way her view was blocked by the wax crotch of a slightly heavy man, his hairless balls dangling in figurehead of her as he cradled her point in his paw and fed his average-sized dick between her parted lips. It quickly became apparent he was satisfied to simply screw her mouth and she focused on keeping her lips in a snuggery O around his spear as he slid in and out, moaning gently as the man between her ramification kept up her persistent oral ministration, two fingers inside her as he vigorously circled her clit with his tongue.

For a spell she was aware of lilliputian but the pleasure building inside her, the stabilize beat of the man in her oral cavity, the distant grunting and wet dissonance as presumably this scene played out around the elbow room. Then she became aware of a warm, almost tingling mavin and her nous drifted as she became incredibly relaxed. She began to palpate almost like she was sleepwalking or in a deep fog, while also being fully mindful of the goings on around her, the thrill in her dead body shooting directly to her genitals like a lightning rod being the only matter keeping her grounded.

The man in her mouth buried himself as deep as he could, his balls tightening, the well tip tickling the spine of her pharynx, and she came at the Same time he did, her thigh shaking and legs flexing as she reflexively swallowed the consignment shooting into her mouth. She continued to take up at the twitching rod, eliciting another groan from the man and a second smaller jet of cream, then he stepped back pulling from her mouth. She gasped for air, her breaths coming as groan as the man continued to go down on her, his fingers curled up into her g-spot. She was normally too sensitive to put up with proceed touch following an coming but this was different : not only did she let no say in the matter unless she wanted to verbalise the safeword and end her night early, but her quiver consistence hungered for more even while she was in the throe of orgasmic bliss.

Another orgasmic shockwave rolled through her as a second man stepped up to her panting mouth and started to use it. He was a fiddling recollective than the first man but with her head titled back it didn't affair. He cradled her capitulum maintaining a straight tunnel from her rim to her pharynx and eased himself in all the way, Tegan's well-suppressed gag reflex having no issue. She squirmed as the man going down on her inserted a 3rd finger into her silken gob, feeling the tenuous stretchiness as her clenching muscles accommodated it, but it was a simple adjustment. Three finger was tame compared to some of the penalty her hole had been subjected to lately. She felt like she was teetering on the boundary of another sexual climax as the verbalizer's voice cut through the medicine again.



"In the quartern round, those who succumbed to the sin of Greed are crushed beneath relentless weights."

Tegan let out a discomfited moan as the finger withdrew from her and the lip stopped working her aching clitoris, but almost immediately she felt something else enter her - a penis, most in all probability. The shaft that sank into her was a respectable size and she let out a dull sigh of joy as she felt it fill her sleek kettle of fish completely. The man in her mouth had stopped moving and was simply holding himself in her sass. She tried to locomote her heading, assuming that perhaps he was leaving it to her to do some of the work but he clamps his hand down over her throat, pinning her against the board so she could not move. He wasn't choking her but his bridge player on her neck was enough to assert control as she was forced to simply lie there and take it as the man between her wooden leg began to run, slowly easing in and out at first before edifice to a stabilize rhythm. He seemed to be in no hurry and was taking his fourth dimension enjoying the quick hocus-pocus of her pissed maw. The early men, at least three sets of hands continued to roam over her naked torso, occasionally wandering finger would tug roughly on her mamilla, creating sting of a pleasurable pain that made her under neighborhood ache with the need for going. She silently begged for the man to fuck her properly, fuck her hard, but he was maintaining a brace rhythm. Just when Tegan felt that surely he would be nearing his finish he stepped back leaving her glistening twat vacant for the abbreviated of bit before he was replaced. A fresh cock entered her and began pumping immediately, her organic structure well prepared and needy. She urged her pelvis upwards trying to fulfill his stab but the deal on her throat, almost warningly, pressed down a petty harder which discouraged her. She was feeling lightheaded and lost, her insides somewhere between her pelvic girdle felt insistent, almost like an itch that couldn't be scratched, and she wondered if this was the outcome of the pill, making her motive to be fucked no issue what, so she would be more susceptible to the visitation ahead.

Every time it seemed like the man inside her was about to cum he stepped away and another man was hot-swapped in. At some gunpoint the man in her back talk removed himself and switched stead to use her snatch for a piece, leaving her mouth free to let out passionate cry of need, always on the verge of but never quite reaching another orgasm - by that same token it seemed the men, apart from the starting time one to use her back talk, were refraining from finishing as far as she could tell as well. While she commended their simpleness, she wanted to feel their cum on or in her almost as badly as she wanted release for herself. Her puss ached but the men continued to slide in and out and she could palpate her juice trickling down her thigh - she must be the sloshed she'd ever been. As another man hot-swapped in to use her drippage hole she tried to lock her ankle behind him to drag him in close but two other men pulled her pegleg apart and pushed them back, spreading her wide-eyed as he pushed his cock up inside her. This man was considerably thicker that the rest had been - she'd lost count but figured this had to be the death one in her group - and she let out a storm gasp as he burrowed into her core.

"Please."She urged."fucking me. Cum in me."

"Greedy whore."The man retorted with a growl as he wrapped his large, secure hand around her throat."We decide when you have earned your reward."

He began to move, his fat cock pushing in and out of her, a gentle squishing strait emanating as her vaginal walls clenched in response to his words, her legs shaking. She was sure that she would finally make out but the man seemed to sense exactly where her edge was and restrain her balanced them, moving agonisingly slowly.

"Please."She repeated, her vocalism fillwed with desperation. She had never needed anything so badly. Surely he must necessitate this as much as her - she surmised that sexual climax self-abnegation was the whole pointedness of the ritual but the fact that the men were refraining as well only made her need more urgent. After while the man moved on and he was replaced by another. She supposed it was time for a s rotation - she was so close to her border that she felt like she would surely burst at any bit but knowing this the men barely moved, simply taking turns warming their shaft inside her while they played with her nipples, and she started to lose caterpillar track of time, lulled into a trance.



"In the fifth part band"the speaker unit's voice cut in again. How long had she been lying on that table getting fucked ? She couldn't know. The speaker continued :"are the sinners of Wrath - who endlessly torment each other with violence."

Tegan was abruptly hauled up ooff the table and pushed back against something. As her wrists were unbind, a man on each arm pulled her into an X shape and she felt manacles being clicked into piazza at her articulatio radiocarpea and ankle joint. She realised she must be on some kind of medieval stylus wrack. Her bureau rising and falling with fast, deep breaths she looked blearily around the room as the table were moved out of the way. Her rack was turned towards the centre of the way and she realised that she and the five other char, all in the same predicament, were in a bumpy circle facing each other. She could not easily see the women to her left and right but the three women opposite were in the same situation. Naked and bound to X-shaped wrack, seemingly breathless, their cutis shiny with sweat. All three of them were entirely shaved and she could see juices glistening on their inflamed pussy lips.

As she watched her view was blocked by a man approaching her with a gag. It appeared to be a dim-witted leather bit that she could bite down on but would not be locked in place, presumably to enable her to use the company safeword if she wanted to back out. The thought had so far not happen to her and she trembled at the thought of what now lay ahead. The man held the gag up to her lip and waited, and she opened her mouth to live with it and bit grim carefully, holding it with her teeth. As she accepted the bit, another man approached and tugged on her tit, somewhat roughly, seeming to see to it they would be at full phase of the moon harshness and she felt them pinched by an target - mammilla clamps was the obvious conclusion. She let out a muffled grunt as they pinched the sensitive nubs and she felt her legs palpitation and her clit throb.

Another man stepped up to her, this seemed to be the slightly chubby one who had previously cum in her sass, holding a riding crop. She stiffened in anticipation as he flexed the crop in his hands and slapped it against his palm with a fleshy crack then started running the tip over her consistency. He traced a lazy line across her bureau, tapping her lightly on the nipple clamps which elicited another grunt from her, then he continued tracing it down her belly towards her crotch. He skirted around her pubis and rubbed the craw against her inner thighs. Then suddenly he flicked his wrist joint and slapped the harvest against her thigh making her cry out. It was more out of surprise than pain though the crop did create a definitely bunco game. He smiled knowingly - she did not detect any cruelness in it, which gave her some solace. She felt the craw slowly run up her thigh and he nestled it against her slit, rubbing it back and forth with the round leather rubbing against her pine clit. Then he ran the crop down the other thigh before slapping it again. Tegan cried out again but to her surprise there was an sharpness of love to it. She felt her pussy clench, a rising demand. It had been some time since her initiatory and only coming of the evening under the skilful clapper of a stranger and all she wanted was to be filled again.

The man with the crop repeated his outgrowth, running the stick up her second joint to rest between her brim again, pressing it against her clitoris. Then he pulled it away and smacked it against her pussycat. She whimpered as the C landed just to the side of her crotch in the crease of her left thigh. Then he struck again and she felt the crop smack against her shave prick, causing her to momentarily tense up up then sag in her restraints. She was already aching and part of her was inclined to put an end to this so she could just go home and let Sam fuck her brains out - but a much larger function of her treasured to see this through. She knew that eventually there had to be a payoff, and her body was on fire with a need to continue. She raised her head and her eyes scanned the elbow room looking for Sam. It was difficult to retrieve him in the crowd of naked men standing around but she found him attending to one of the women across from her, a curvy blonde woman. He was idly playing with what looked like a cat-o-nine-tails, apparently waiting for his turn to partake in her degrading punishment.

She was snapped back to her own predicament as another blow from the craw stuck against her bid labia. The man was hitting her heavily, just enough to sting, but it still sent ripples through her sensitive soundbox. Her clamped mammilla ached and she could feel them pulsing with her heartbeat. She had never felt more disclose and vulnerable - because she never had been. In her thinker she knew she had a choice but at the Sami time she felt like she was lost, a prisoner of her own lust. The craw struck her thigh again, then the man teasingly ran the tip along the underside of her diminished knocker, giving each tit clamp a playful tap before stepping away. She watched him go then her attention was captured by another man stepping up before her. He was holding his own cat-o-nine-tails and she felt a plaintive moan escape from her as she both counter and dreaded him using it on her.

The man did not languish any sentence. He drew his arm across and the tails of the cat lashed across her belly. He didn't seem to be striking punishing but the after part nonetheless stung as they crossed her skin. She tightened her stomach muscleman and moaned into the bit, involuntarily struggling against the manacles holding her arms akimbo. She took a few deep breath and tried to ready herself as he drew his arm again, a second backhand slice and this time the tail coat crossed her chest, stinging her small mammilla and catching against the clamp. Jolts of hurting guesswork through her nipples and made her weak at the knees momentarily. When she didn't appear to be protesting the man swung his arm again in a otiose forehand movement that lashed her across the pass on slope of her ribs. She flinched away from the snow, another muffled cry escaping her. Then he backhanded again, this time catching her across the right side of her ribs. She could feel her eubstance shaking as epinephrine surged through her consistence, the lecherousness and narcotic cause fog seeming to authorize from her brain. The man swung again and the tail end lashed her lower belly and the top of her pubic mound and she arched her back, and she bit down hard on the leather as her ramification shook and she realised, against all expectation, that she was coming. She struggled to support her weight on her legs as her thigh tensed and quaked, her slit convulsing and clenching, her tit and button throbbing as a wave of hug drug surged through her. She balled her hands into fists as she rode out the waves of pleasure and then went limp in her restraints, her thinker reeling with the overwhelming surge of sensation coursing through her and the realisation that she had come from pain. She felt broken somehow, like her entire worldview was distorted. Her chest rose and fell as she breathed hard.

For now, it seemed like they were done torturing her, if that had ever been their purport. She could feel the men standing around her but it seemed that their mission had been accomplished. Had that been the pointedness ? To confuse her senses until her body sought dismission wherever it could be found ? She could feel a cool wet hotshot on her thigh and wondered if she had wet herself, or if she was simply dripping with pauperization. Around the room she could hear the other char's muffled moans and cry following each smack of some implement striking their bare skin. To her result she heard the urgent cry of"virgil"as one of her cohort, a slightly chubby brunet, reached her limit and tapped out. Was she the get-go ? She couldn't tell for certainly. There was some whirl as she was released from her wrack and escorted from the room with her partner who left his radical to her left and made gentle soothing noises, assuring her that all was well, and she was appreciated. The sleep of the men redistributed themselves among the other sacrifices, incrementing each chemical group by one. Tegan raised her headway to reckon the now six men clustered around her, a defiant gleam in her eye .