From the thug’s memories earlier I counted seven members total. With one now acting as the base of Jack and the ugly leader with my mother that leaves five more thugs either sleeping or pottering around. 

Jack and I made our way to the edge of the camp, a crackling fire lay in the middle with the group’s tents arranged in a semi-circle around the north side, and a larger tent of the leader in the middle. The south side of the camp had a few tables set up where I could see some scraps of various animal carcases and pieces on top of them. From the tree line I could make out two more members on watch, one fast asleep lent against a spear and the other playing solitaire on a stump. Fools. I motioned for Jack to stalk closer. His instincts made his stealthy approach perfect and if it wasn’t for my swaddled body atop his back, his fur would have blended him in perfectly with the surroundings. Whatever manner of beast Jack was it was well adapted for hunting in these frozen woods. I slid off Jack’s back and gave him a signal to attack the thug playing cards. Jack skulked closer and rose elegantly behind the man, in a single swift motion Jack tore out the thug’s throat, blood seeped everywhere but the man could only let out a bubble of noise as he bled out, Jack smiled widely and looked to me for praise. I nodded at him and pointed towards the still sleeping guard. For this Jack took a different approach, eyeing up the man Jack seemed to weigh up his options before sharply disarming the man’s spear and piercing it through the side of his head, letting the body collapse into the soft snow. Jack looked at me expectantly and I nodded and motioned the sign for eating. Jack happily crouched down and began eating the thug whom he had torn the throat of earlier. I moved closer to the corpses and patted down their pockets. Found it, a cigarette case with a flint lighter. Perfect. 

I let Jack eat a little more and while he was crouched low I patted him on the head, he had done his job perfectly. Placing my other hand on Jack’s back I left an unbinding ritual seal on him with a timer of around ten minutes or so. It was only fair to allow him to live the rest of his life in his natural form after all, plus it would make for an excellent distraction. While Jack happily ate I made my way to the tents on the east side and began hitting the lighter as hard as I could, it took a few tries but I managed to catch a portion of the underside of the tent alight and as quick as I could I ran to the opposite side and did the same to one of the tents there too. While the fires took hold I moved towards the back of the leader’s tent while Jack happily continued his meal. 

It didn’t take long for two more of the thugs to make their way out of their tents, one out of a burning one. The third member seemed to struggle with one of the tents on fire and began frantically trying to escape only to tangle himself in the tent as it began to burn him alive. Not a pleasant way to go. His screams seemingly sprung the other two to action and from the noise within the leader’s tent, had woken him also. The two thugs could see Jack’s silhouette over their former comrade and the pair took up their weapons and charged. Through our connection, I encouraged Jack to run and save himself which he promptly followed. As the pair ran off after Jack I knew it was only about five more minutes before they would lose Jack after he uncouples from the human parts and returns to a simple beast at which time they would then find the mangled pieces of their other member who Jack was currently in the process of, well… using. As the two members disappeared into the woods the ugly leader poked his disgusting face outside and took a look around his camp. He moved towards the other burning tent and unhooked the cables letting it fall into a pile and burn out in the snow as not to spread to the other tents. The third thug had already taken care of distancing his tent while in a panic and it now burned slowly off to one side of them too. While the leader was distracted putting out his squirming subordinate I made my way to the front of the tent and slipped inside.