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.

The Walrus woke on his throne at dawn and pushed open the stone door of his fortress. He stepped into the wet grass to inspect his army. The egg men were marching. They were marching badly. Two hundred smooth white bodies wobbled in loose circles, bumping tusk-first into pine trunks and each other. He shouted, "Goo goo gajoob!" and pointed east. Half of them turned east. The other half sat down. One walked into the pond and did not come out. The Walrus dragged a flipper down his face. A soldier who scattered at a shout would scatter at a spear. His fifth campaign would end before it began. He waddled back inside, climbed onto the throne, and thought. He needed three things. He needed to make the egg men harder to break. He needed to make them braver. And he needed a commander they could not disobey, because he himself planned to nap through most of the marching. He started with the shells. He hauled his egg men one by one to the pile of scrap tin behind the fortress and hammered curved plates around each smooth body until they gleamed like polished eggs in armor. The plates covered belly, back, and crown, with slits for eyes and a rim for the little arms. When he was done, two hundred egg men stood in the clearing wearing bright tin shells that clanked when they breathed. Next came the courage. From under the throne he pulled a heavy glass flask he had been saving for a worse day. The liquid inside swirled pink and green and gold. He uncorked it and walked the line, tipping a single drop onto each armored head. The egg men shivered. Their small eyes went wide. One of them punched a tree. Another shouted a word the Walrus had never taught him. Good enough. The last piece was the hardest. The Walrus spent the afternoon dragging stones from the fortress wall into the center of the clearing and stacking them into the shape he knew best: himself. He piled boulders for the body, wedged two long white stones for tusks, and set two round river rocks for eyes. He climbed onto its shoulder and pressed his forehead to the stone snout. "Goo," he whispered. "Goo goo gajoob." The rocks shuddered. The eyes rolled open. The golem stood up on thick stone legs, twice the Walrus's height, and looked down at the army below. The Walrus pointed at the golem and then at the egg men. "March," he said. The golem raised one arm. Two hundred tin shells snapped into a line behind it and held. No one wobbled. No one sat. The Walrus grinned around his tusks and climbed down. He had a commander, an armored army, and the whole afternoon left for a nap. The campaign could start tomorrow. Something in the trees, unseen, had already started watching.