Author's note: Sorry this one took so long. There will definately be one more chapter. By the way, this takes place after the third chapter of "Life of a Noble", so no more Frenchies.

Gunther cursed. His first thought was the most obvious in this situation: run and don't look back. But these people seemed to expect such, as no sooner had this thought crossed his mind than another ten men came out of the underbrush in front of them, and yet another group on both sides of the road.

Jane and Smithy joined him in cursing.

"You know, this used to be a toll road." A man in the group just in front of them stepped forward, obviously the leader. The interesting thing was, looking at this group, it seemed that it was in reality four smaller groups. The group on each side of the road appeared to look to one person, standing with them, and those people were looking toward the man in front of them.

"Used to be a toll road?" Gunther asked, quite puzzled, looking for the best way to escape.

"Back when some people weren't imprisoned, this here was a toll road."

"So, what is this road, now?" asked Jane, even more confused than Gunther, subtly moving her eyes to the left of the road, where two of the brutes were a little farther apart than any of the others.

"This ain't a road no more."

"I believe it still is a road," commented Smithy, the most confused of all.

"Well, you see, the toll here, it helped the people. If it wasn't for the tolls, we wouldn't have any weapons. But now, we still can't get new weapons, so the road is closed now. No one travels on this road anymore."

"No one told us that. We'll head back into town and go ahead and take another road," Smithy definitely didn't get what was happening.

"I don't think you will. In fact, I think you got lost on your way home and were attacked by a pack of wolves." While the leader was talking, Jane got Gunther's attention very discreetly and moved her eyes to the weak point.

"Now, this hardly seems necessary. We were just hoping to make our way home. We're tired and we want rest," Gunther tried to reason with them.

"We can provide rest." It didn't seem to work.

Smithy finally seemed to catch on. "You plan on killing us?"

Gunther and the outlaw leader both replied to this somewhat blunt question by sighing, dropping their face into their hands, and shouting "Yes!"

"Well, you might as well explain why you're killing us again, since our companion missed that."

"Very well. You imprisoned our weapon source. Pal was the only smith in a ten mile radius willing to forge blades for outlaws, in return for the occasional work on guard duty and a share of the loot. So my gang and those three on your sides and behind you decided that if you weren't there, Pal would probably go free."

"At least let Smithy go. He had nothing to do with this. We simply brought him along to serve as a temporary squire, as neither of us have one."

The leader thought on this for a moment before gesturing toward the area on his left to open. Smithy left the small area, immediately setting his horse to a run in the direction of the castle a few minutes away. Unfortunately for Gunther and Jane, the group then stepped in until they completely surrounded the two horses, destroying any chance they might have had for escape. Gunther and Jane drew their swords, readying to fight.

OoOoO

Smithy rode hard to the castle. Fortunately, today was not a market day and he was only a few minutes away. The guards immediately recognized the Smith, and inquired as to why he was in such a rush. Smithy spluttered out the reason, and one of the sentries set off at a dead run. The other began to open the gates. In minutes, two score knights led by Sir Bedwyr rode off on horseback, pressing their steeds perhaps a bit too much.

When they arrived at the battle, things were not going well for Jane and Gunther. Jane had collapsed from a large gash on her side, and Gunther had moved her behind him in his saddle. Her horses head lay to the left of the road, the body to the right. Gunther's parries were getting sloppy, but only about ten of the outlaws remained standing, the others wounded or dead.

The knights stormed in, and Gunther and Jane were quickly removed from battle as the rest of the attackers were dispatched. Only one of the knights was injured, besides Gunther and Jane, and the knight quickly disposed of the dead outlaws and made their way back to the castle at a much slower pace. Jane was quickly brought to the kitchen where Pepper's daughters could most easily take care of her, Gunther was declared fine but was ordered to remain in the Knight's Quarters overnight, just in case. Half of Gunther was glad: his meeting with his wife would be delayed until the morning. The other half was distressed by the fact that he had to lay in despair, wondering how he would be received.