Walla Walla’s defenses stood in a stout irregular rectangle now, ferroconcrete and rubble walls forty feet high faced with hard granite; round towers reared half that again at intervals, with conical roofs of witch-hat shape on top sheathed in lead or copper, the whole surrounded by a deep moat. The wartime hoardings were up over the crenellations of the wall, sloping metalfaced timber roofs that protected the fighting platform from arrow fire and let defenders shoot and drop things straight down from under cover.

The old penitentiary had been the foundation for the big castle that made the northwestern corner of the new walled city; she could see its massive machicolated towers silhouetted against the blazing colors of the western sky. A blimp-shaped observation balloon at three thousand feet up stood black against the dark blue vault of heaven, the long curve of its tethering cable hardly visible at all.

As she watched a signal light began to snap from its basket, aimed east in a rapid flicker of coded Morse, probably sending to one of the castles in the foothills of the mountains there.

There were still around fifteen thousand people here in peacetime, half what Portland had and nearly as much as Corvallis. The rich farmlands, pastures, orchards and vineyards of the Walla Walla valley and the timber of the Blue Mountains to the east brought it wealth, as did trade in peacetime; in war it was an outpost against the city-state of Pendleton to the south and the United States of Boise to the north and east. Or against both and the Prophet’s hordes from Montana, now.

Banners flew from the peaks of tower and gatehouse. Besides the scarlet-yellow-black Lidless Eye of the PPA, there were the arms of the Aguirre family who were Counts Palatine of the Eastermark and Barons of Walla Walla—Or, a tree vert with a wolf passant sable, on a tree brun—and now the crowned mountain and sword of the High Kingdom of Montival flying above them all. Sandra had seen to that throughout the Association territories and encouraged it elsewhere, even before the putative High King got back.

Well, I helped train Rudi . . . Artos . . . all those years since I first kidnapped him. He’s certainly very capable; a little sentimental, but hard enough when he has to be, and extremely smart. Deadly dangerous with any weapon, too. I wouldn’t have believed a man over six feet could move that fast, if I hadn’t seen it myself. The only man I’ve ever met as fast as I am.

Her thoughts shied away from the Sword of the Lady. Not that she didn’t believe in it; it was so real that your belief became utterly irrelevant. Too real. You got the feeling that it could tear through the fabric of things at any moment, like a heavy weight through damp paper. Meaning itself crumbled around it.