Dakota crawled into the sunlight. The storm had passed, leaving craters and muddied earth as the only reminders of its violent path. The pit was still muddy and it took a few minutes and a few slips to clamber out of.

The house was still intact, mostly. The chimney had exploded and he could see hunks of the masonry scattered in the beaten-down grass. Half the shed he had found Jesus hunkering next to was also gone. The half that remained was charred and smouldering. He was glad nothing had struck the house proper. The idea of the farmhouse burning down as well sent shivers up his spine.

The garden has survived the storm as well as the rest of the field. Meaning not great. Two large craters had taken out half of the potatoes and ruined all the beats.

Grabbing his hoe, Dakota piled dirt around a couple of exposed potato plants. He spent the next hour salvaging what he could of the garden.

Kneeling, he reset the bean fence… and found a blue salamander. The bright blue face poked out from under a leaf and had nearly given him a heart attack. He stood well back from it. Nothing that vibrant could be safe for human contact. He shooed the creature away with the end of his hoe and finished fixing the fence.

After that…he took a break. He wanted to keep working but found his energy reserves gone. Crunching on a carrot, he cleared a space inside the farmhouse and laid down. Jesus snuggled for a couple of minutes before heading outside. He wanted to keep an eye on the lamb but couldn’t find the wherewithal to stop it from exploring. There was nothing out there anyways. Hopefully.

Dakota’s legs were still tender from the barn fire and he was exhausted from the general mayhem of the last few days. So saying, he closed his eyes and only woke up when darkness had fallen.

He spent the next day collecting bricks and repairing the chimney. He didn’t have any mortar to stick the bricks together with but he managed to stack them in a reasonably safe manner. Later in the day, he tried to make a fire in the oven. Unfortunately, he had lost his flint stone in the storm and didn’t have the strength to go all the way to the stream to find a new one. He half-heartedly rubbed a couple of sticks together but knew starting a fire that way would be more work than going to the stream. Giving up, he had gone outside when an idea struck him. Grabbing a handful of branches, he crawled into the tunnel entrance at the base of the pit. The blue fire. It had burned his sleeve, why shouldn’t it burn wood? Jamming the improvised torch into the flames he watched the fire latch to the branches. Huzzah!

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Hurrying outside, he carefully made his way to the house. He had anticipated the fire being hard to keep going while he was on the move. Instead, the fire firmly stuck to the branches. Burning steadily and slowly. The branches had only started blackening as he put them inside the oven. The blue flames continued, even after adding more wood. He boiled a pot of water to wash his filthy clothes, then another pot to have a sponge bath. He did this all on the initial branches he had lit and a few more he added after. The fire burned for a long time.

Stretching out on the deck, he let the sun dry him and his clothes off. It was time to talk with the goblin chief. He had been putting it off, busying himself with tasks around the farm but this needed to happen if he was serious about getting home. Buuut maybe it could wait a day. His eyes fluttered close as the warm sun passed overhead.

Dakota crept through the underbrush, hoe in hand. Jesus wasn’t with him, not for what he was about to risk. He crammed himself underneath a rotting log. The stream gurgled to his left, a thick branch jammed between two rocks sitting above the rushing water.

It didn’t take long for the telltale sound of footfalls to reach his ears. Two small goblins appeared, rounding the log he was hiding under. Both held spears…but loosely. They weren’t expecting trouble.

One dropped its loin cloth and sat on the branch over the water. The other stood back, only a few feet from him.

Dakota surged upwards, scattering rotten wood and foliage. He cracked the goblin standing near him across the head dropping it as a strangled scream came from the other as it fell back into the stream. He strode over and yanked it from the water, pinning it underneath his knee. Its eyes were wide and panicked as it flailed underneath him. He poked the creature in the forehead.

“Stop.”

It didn’t.

It only stilled when its eyes darted past his shoulder. He twisted, catching the end of the spear. The goblin he knocked unconscious stood trembling, trying to pull the spear out of his grasp. He wrenched, sending the creature pitching forward into him. He slammed it face-first into the ground beside its companion. He leaned down, knees crunching into their spines.

“I don’t know how much you understand but get this. Try to kill me and die. I need to talk to your chieftain. I’m going to let one of you go and keep the other as insurance. Okay?”

The first goblin kept fighting but the second gave a slight nod of the head. Dakota released it, pointing the spear he had stolen at the fallen goblin. The creature scampered into the woods without a backwards glance. He sure hoped it had understood.

Pain shot through his calf. The goblin had managed to reach behind it and dig its claws into his flesh. He slammed the spear onto the back of its head.

That was better.