The first step was to create the trap into which I was to lure him. This proved harder than I’d thought – not because Thor didn’t have any enemies – in fact, the Worlds were littered with folk who were keen to do him harm – but because no one would believe that I could ever betray him. Our fame had given rise to some underserved rumours of friendship between us, besides which my own reputation as a master of deceit meant that whomever I tried to recruit would immediately (and unfairly) assume that I was not to be believed.

No, straightforward recruitment was out. I had to do something subtle. Something that would persuade the mark that my idea was his idea.

A long con, in effect.

And so I assumed my hawk Aspect and went to visit the Ice Folk. It was my first time in that region since Thrym’s death, and the mark was Thrym’s successor, a brutal warlord named Geirrod. I knew him by reputation; I knew that he was ambitious; I knew that he thought he was smart; I knew that he liked hunting with hawks and that he had an unusual way of snaring the birds he meant to train. I also knew that he hated Thor, who happened to have killed one of his relatives, which made him the ideal target for the plan I had in mind.

Still, after the deaths of Thiassi and Thrym, no warlord of the Ice Folk would have dreamed of making a deal. No, I had to approach Geirrod in a way that would lead him to believe that he had got the better of me – not an appealing prospect, I know, but you have to speculate to accumulate. And so I flew to Geirrod’s camp, where the man himself was training hawks, settled on a branch nearby, and let events take their course.

The trap was simple, but effective. The hunter had spread a kind of glue onto the branches of the tree on which I’d chosen to rest a while. When I came to fly away, I found that my feet were stuck to the branch, and before I could react, I was caged. What a humiliation.

Of course, I kept to my hawk Aspect throughout the unpleasant procedure, biting and screaming and flapping my wings. Geirrod’s keen, acquisitive eyes brightened as he looked at me.

‘This one has spirit. I’ll train him myself. I’ll put him in jesses and feed him scraps. He’ll make me a fine hunter.’

I glared at him. He looked amused. I didn’t like being kept in a cage, or being put into jesses, but there was glam around Geirrod, and I knew he’d recognize me quickly enough. He called over his daughters, two rather plain girls called Gjalp and Greip, and together they stared into the cage at Your Humble Narrator.