My eyes slowly open as my surroundings become clearer. Where am I? I see my bag and my weapons have been taken, but the wolf pelt remains.

I look around and see that I'm somewhere in the woods, surrounded by shoddy tents and wooden barricades around them in a circle, the tree branches have long, stretched cloths that help keep the dirt free of snow, with a few campfires lit. I struggle to move my arms and see that they are tied around a wooden pole.

Then I heard a voice, shrieking and loud, looking at it I see them. Goblins.

They wear leather and mostly cloth, with a hatchet, cooking knife, or dagger. At least a dozen of them either sit, eat, or sleep. The one shouting seems to be the one keeping an eye on me as he rushes inside one of the tents.

I look around a little more and also see several of those, orcs, sitting on tree stumps, sharpening their blades or apparently, throwing a goblin around like a toy.

The same goblin steps out of the tent, and soon follows the one I hit last night, as the sun seems to be raising in the sky.

He wears a more proper set of clothes, with leather and steel plates on his body. I notice he also stands straight compared to every other goblin's hunched posture. And to my surprise, he has a small patch of orange hair on his head.

Approaching me with shortsword in hand he kneels in front of me and speaks to me, his words going to deaf ears as I simply stare at him, and I don't know for how long had I been doing it, but a low growl was the only thing I answered.

He says a few more words before shouting and hitting me with the handle of the sword, he shouts a few more times and awaits my answer, and once he closes the distance to hit me again I kick him in the chest, throwing him to the ground as a few goblins laugh.

This was a mistake, he gets enraged and raises his shortsword, this time preparing to deliver a killing blow, and as my mind rushes a way to get out of here alive a stronger, louder, and heavier voice halts his intentions on the spot.

Walking up to us, as all goblins make way, comes one of the orcs. With one single braid that goes as low as his hips, steel boots, and a thick, circular belt that covers his entire abdomen, as well as what seems like bear fur on his shoulders and back.

Everything about him screams leader.

Up close now I notice how the orcs have eyes like mine, but their irises are a powerful red. Four small horns protrude from their heads and two from their chins. He has almost pure white skin, with noticeable scars around a few places.

The shortsword goblin too moves away as the orc stands in front of me, he looks at me with a grin on his face for a moment before turning around and speaking to the rest of my captors. And the orcs cheer while the goblins laugh, and soon everyone stands up from what they were doing.

Moving around stuff until a large circle was made around me, with them surrounding me, holding their weapons in hand. Even more orcs come out from the tents, apparently injured but excited to see what's to come.

Then a pair of my kin come behind me cutting the ropes on my hands and running back to the rest. I look around uneasily as they shout words I don't comprehend but seem to amuse them, will they all come for me now?

My question is quickly answered as the leader sits on a stump and points at a random goblin from the crowd.

And he immediately rushes at me, dagger in hand. He slashes and I dodge, tries to stab me and I move away. His movements are barely better than waving the steel around, everybody laughs at the display as his smile is erased, and instead turns sour as he yells and jumps at me.

With my hands I hold both of his arms and wasting no time, I dig my teeth into his neck, biting deep as he struggles to break free, then I pull from his flesh and kick him at the same time, tearing a massive chunk of meat from its now mangled neck, he covers the wound with both hands but is not enough to stop the massive bleeding, so he collapses as his body trashes around.

I spit the meat from my mouth, looking around as I see the goblins furious, while the orcs cheer and raise their fists. My eyes don't stop wandering as I look for a way out, but at the moment the circle is too tight to attempt to make a run for it.

But then a spear is thrown at me from the crowd, I barely evade it in time by jumping back, snatching the dagger on the floor almost by instinct.

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The crowd riles up and begins to chant a single word.

"FOGOSH! FOGOSH! FOGOSH!" Even the goblins join in chants as the one who threw the spear enters the circle, it is the goblin of the shortsword, who must be called Fogosh.

Immediately I can tell he is different. He takes a stance and holds the blade with both hands, his enraged eyes focused on me, the bronze piercings shining in orange sunlight and his teeth bared.

I hold the knife in my mouth and pull the spear from the ground, my action seemingly catching the eye of the leader as he stands up from his stump, a grin on his face.

The spectators begin to hit the ground rhythmically, with either their feet or whatever weapon they hold, and one of the orcs suddenly shouts "Kratshus, Hog' Ushkur!" and a few others begin to shout as well.

Fogosh shouts some words of his own at them before looking me in the eye and running forward as they cheer.

And the fight begins.

I thrust forward but he dodges it with a speed I didn't anticipate, I try to then slash at him with the point but he dodges again, this time closing in and slashing with his blade. But I manage to put the spear between me and him, he snaps it in half.

Afraid, I jump back but he follows, almost as if he knew I was gonna do that, and he slashes again, I put what's left of the spear between us and he snaps it once more, forcing it to fly away from my hand, repeating his attempt and closing the distance he prepares to slash for a third time as he moves close to the ground.

But I have learned.

I duck and meet him head-on, taking him by surprise as he tries to cut but by the time the swing has been made I already slammed his face with my head. Not wasting the opportunity I jerk my head and cut his nose with the knife, while also pushing him away with my hands.

He slashes around preventing me from pushing further and we both take several steps back, I spit the knife into my right hand, and he wipes the blood off his face. The crowd of orcs cheers wildly while the goblins seem to have gotten silent, some turning heads and looking at each other.

The leader laughs and says some words to Fogosh that made him shout back, whatever it was enraging him even further. He then takes out a dagger he seemed to hide behind him on his belt.

I still look for a way out, to run away would be the smartest choice but glancing around I still see no way to escape from this.

He points his sword toward me and says a few words before running at me even faster than before. And this time he has two weapons in hand that he uses to the fullest.

I'm forced to evade and defend as he uses the shortsword to force me to defend while closing in and trying to deliver a killing blow with the dagger in hand, and I can't fight back or escape his relentless assault, as eventually, he begins to cut me.

Deep enough to hurt and draw blood, but not enough to hamper my speed. But I know that if things don't change he will eventually kill me.

And then, a wild idea strikes me, maybe out of desperation, but I bite my lip hard and spit the blood to his face once he is still enough, this works and he closes his eyes, swinging wildly while stepping back to make the distance.

But the adrenaline in my body has awakened something in me, and I'm not willing to let him recover and attack me again like that, I know he won't fall for the same trick twice. So I jump at him and let him cut my torso deep with his dagger, but in turn, I grab his now raised left arm.

He panics and tries to stab me in the stomach with his blade, and without thinking twice I duck down and bite it, as hard as I can, managing to halt its advance as its point pokes and cuts open my cheek from the inside, the sharpness of its edges cutting my tongue as I savor the metallic taste of my blood.

He shouts something as he opens his eyes, the blood probably still hampering his sigh, but then I dig my knife deep into HIS stomach. All the way to the base as he screams, but doesn't fall, instead trying to stab deeper with his blade, and as I feel its point dig deeper into my cheek I begin to twist the knife inside him.

This seems enough as he pushes me away, and I luckily avoid the sword cutting open half of my face as he throws it on the ground. But with my knife still in hand his face now changes, he is no longer wrathful, instead, he is afraid.

Turning his back on me, he runs back to the crowd, hand on his open wound and my body moved on its own, pouncing at him from above like a wolf about to deliver the killing blow.

But only once I was in midair did I notice the terrible mistake I had made, he turned around, a triumphant smile as he rose his hand when I brought down my knife, allowing it to pierce through, he frit his teeth and as I fell on top of him forcing him to the ground I couldn't retrieve the knife fast enough.

In one stab he pierced my neck, the dagger getting stuck deep as he kicked me to get off him.

I can feel the blood gushing out of it, and it gets hard to breath. I fell to the ground as cheers sound all around, I look at the orange skies as the snow falls to my face.

Was this what it saw? What it feels like? The wolf on my back must surely be laughing, I got too caught up in the fight to see it coming.

For almost a year I tried my best, to learn, adapt and survive. I should have been more careful.

At least it doesn't hurt anymore and everything is quiet now, I can only hear my heartbeat as it slowly fades away...I'm no longer cold. And as everything loses its light I see one of the orcs look at me but, coming to gloat or maybe drag me off and eat me.

But what comes is not darkness, it is a sudden indescribable pain whoever is standing in front of me takes the dagger out of my neck and pours a liquid on it, the pain is so much it's almost enough to make me black out, but I endure.

Because I can feel the wound close and soon the noise of the winter breeze, as well as the cracking of the campfire's firewood is all I hear. I gasp for air as I put both hands on my now-healed neck. And I look at the leader orc as he throws an empty small glass bottle on my head, a smirk on his face as he says something to his men and a pair of them rush to me, seizing me from the ground and holding both of my arms behind my back.

What do they want now? I wonder as they carry me to the biggest of tents, where the leader went and probably sleeps. I catch a glimpse of Fogosh, his disdain painted all over his face as he picks up the still-dripping blood dagger off the ground.