She halted as soon as she reached the edge of town and didn't even bother to go past the fields to where the trees would hide her. That would take too long, and nobody would be looking this way right now.

She shifted into her dragon form, and with a leap and a clap of her wings she was aloft. Her heart was going fast as she flew. She had never fought before, and the men has swords and even a few bows. Her scales were tough, but if they knew what to do, they could still hurt her. But however nervous she might be, she was even more determined. Nobody would be hurting her family, or burning down her father's inn!

No one noticed her at first as she streaked low over the houses. They were all looking at Jack's men, not at the sky. But they couldn't help but notice her when she dived at the gathered horsemen and breathed out a long blast of fire at them. Horses screamed in panic and scattered, several of them dumping their riders off. Men screamed too. She had not aimed at anyone in particular, but the wash of her breath had touched a few of them enough to burn. She wasn't trying to kill, she didn't want to kill again, but she wasn't going to hold back either. The most important thing was getting them to leave the village alone, one way or another. If the ran, that was good, but if they died, that would serve too.

Jack came out of the inn, shouting curses at his men, but he stopped dead when he saw Serali, who was circling above for another pass. His eyes went wide. She roared and dived down directly at him. He let out a panicked yelp and tried to retreat into the inn. She landed in front of him before he could and snapped at him, her sharp teeth meeting less than a foot from his face. He stepped back and stumbled over the threshold, falling flat on the floor inside. One of the other bandits had gathered the courage to charge at her, and she felt a sharp impact against her side. She turned her head to find the man bringing his sword back for another blow. The first had simply rebounded off her scales. She snapped her wings open and bowled him over with them easily. When she turned her attention back to Jack, she found he was out cold and her father was standing over him, looking more than a little wild-eyed, with a large skillet from the kitchen in his hand. She turned and took to the sky again. Men on horseback were scattered all through the village now, and to her satisfaction they mostly seemed concerned with escaping her.

She swept over the village from west to east, chasing them towards the road out of town. She dived and threatened them with streams of fire if any tried to turn in another direction, and soon they were all riding down the road at a panicked pace, save for Jack and a couple of his fellows who had been unhorsed right at the first. She whirled then and returned to the town square, landing in the center of it, where a small crowd of brave souls had gathered. The all backed away from her, some of them looking very frightened.

For a long moment villagers and dragon regarded each other in uncomfortable silence. Finally Serali spoke. "It's all right," she said, glad that her voice as a dragon sounded fairly different from her voice as a human. "I don't want to hurt you. I just wanted to make sure they are all gone and everyone is all right."

Breck, never one to be easily frightened, stepped forward from the crowd. "Thank you for chasing them off," he said."They've killed two people, and there are four of them still here but we have them safely tied up now."

"That's good. I need to go then." She looked past the crowd and was relieved to see her parents standing in front of the inn, both looking fine. She took to the sky again and flew away from the village, going east just to make sure the bandits, or whatever they were, were still running. She could see the cloud of dust that rose from the dry road behind their horses, and it looked like they were going as fast as they could get the horses to go. She landed in a copse of scrub oak that was only just tall enough to hide her, and changed back.

She sat there for a moment, shaking. Once she'd begun her attack she'd felt nothing but determination to do what needed to be done, but now she felt all the fear and worry and risk rushing in on her. She might have been killed. Humans could kill a dragon, especially a small one like her. And they might have killed her family, she'd been afraid that their leader would kill her father before she could get back and chase them off. They might have actually burned down the inn, or even burned down the whole town! She wrapped her arms around her knees and trembled with it for some time before calming enough to get to her feet and run back into town.

When she got there her mother grabbed her up in a hug. "My Serali! I was so afraid for you. But here you are, safe." Serali hugged her mother back. "I'm sorry I ran off, Mama. I was afraid."

He mother smiled at her, but then she started scolding. "But don't you do that again! I was so worried! You run off like that again and you will make your poor Mama drop dead from worrying about you!"

"I won't, Mama," she said.

But she knew that if she had to, she would do the same again.