The Walrus's Arc

Chapter 1 of 2

The Walrus stood in a clearing of the Norwegian wood and counted his army out loud. "Goo goo gajoob," he said, and tapped each smooth white head with a tusk. Two hundred egg men stood in the wet grass with nothing above them but pine branches and rain. He had failed to take the world four times already. He would not fail a fifth time because his soldiers got soft from weather. He had a plan, and the plan needed a roof. The egg men had arranged themselves in a tight spiral around him, smallest in the center, largest on the outside ring, the way he had drilled them. It looked clever. It would not stop a single arrow. The Walrus paced the spiral and muttered. Any farmer with a torch could end the conquest before breakfast. He needed walls. He needed them today. He dragged the throne in first. It was red and gold and heavier than three egg men combined, and he had hauled it through the trees on his belly because he refused to leave it behind on any campaign. A throne was the point. A throne was for napping whenever he pleased, and a king who could not nap was not a king. He set it in the center of the spiral and climbed onto the cushion and pointed his tusks at the tallest pile of stones at the edge of the clearing. "Goo," he said. "Goo goo." The egg men broke formation and ran. They worked until dusk. They stacked the stones into a low dome shaped like the Walrus himself, with a wooden door beneath two carved tusks and a snout that watched the trees. It was crude. It was small. The throne barely fit inside, and the egg men had to sleep in shifts around the outer wall. But it was a fortress, and it was his, and when the Walrus shut the door behind him he could no longer be burned out by a farmer with a torch. He climbed onto the throne, closed his eyes, and slept. Outside, the egg men re-formed their spiral around the stone walrus and waited for morning. In the morning, the Walrus would march. In the morning, someone in the wood would notice the new shape on the horizon, and the fifth campaign would begin whether he was ready or not.