So Jon gets assigned to a task group that goes out every so often to hunt down strays from the other side and to gather information. This gives us the chance for a little bit of action and a whole lot of padding, if needed. The task group members are always changing, so it’s a little odd. Jon is never sure if it’s because they are losing Huntsmen or because they are just short handed and moving people around a lot.

In between this, he does actually get to go on some dog whispering type assignments, because they are trying to earn a bit of money after all. He has a bit of fun with the various dogs, being careful never to quite give away his actual knack.

Along the way he learns some interesting things about the older generation huntsmen and what the bond used to be like. There is a lot of information that indicated the dogs can bond much more closely than they do, but they chose not to. His own bond is apparently much stronger than other peoples and it seems to be because of Akela management of the pack.

He notices that there is some inter-pack tension and that Tos and Jenna often seem at odds with Akela and Athen. He isn’t quite sure what is going on, but it looks interesting. He also learned that both pairs came from separate packs not too long ago. Tos and Athen came from an older pack that had simply grown too large and Akela came from a pack that had been more or less wiped out in an attack.

Of course it’s on one of these missions that Jon get’s kidnapped by the Bad Guys(tm). Because hey, it’s cliché, and darn but we love our clichés. Heh.