If all he wanted to do were to rescue the prisoners, the simplest approach would be to sneak in after dark, and rescue them unseen. Unfortunately he may not be unseen, and in the dark escape through this forest would be slow. Finally, every minute made it more likely the major Celtic party would turn up. No! It might seem to be a gamble to launch a frontal attack in full daylight, but the night rescue depended entirely on remaining unseen, and nobody noticing the rescue until the following morning.
Time to commence. First, the prisoners were gagged. They did not like that, but they understood the reason. His archers would creep to the far side of the camp, and should get off two volleys before any effective opposition could be mounted. Half his foot soldiers would protect the archers, and if they remained hidden in the shrubbery until the last instant, each should kill a Celt with a pilum before the Celts realized what was really happening. With most of the attention now directed to that side, he would lead the attack from the rear. Three soldiers had to remain behind, one to guard the demon and the others to control the horses and prisoners. Any attempt by the prisoners to make themselves known would lead to their immediate deaths. He took a bow from his horse then he gave the orders and watched everyone get into position.
So far, so good! Everyone was in place, and the Celts were seemingly unaware. The first volley of arrows struck, and four Celts fell. The next volley came, and three more failed to evade quickly enough, and were struck. More arrows flew, and as the Celts bunched together to make better use of their shields, the pilii flew. Wild yelling broke out, and the Celts charged towards the forest, to engage the source of their troubles, but half had had to drop their shields, and arrows tore into them. Gaius noticed that Vipsania had looked up, hope in her eyes. Gaius held his hand up to hold back the men near him until the Celts actually reached the forest boundary. Then he signalled by letting off two arrows.
He continued shooting arrows as his men sprinted towards the prisoners. Vipsania's eyes lit up to see Timothy, and then him as he ran towards her. She was so pleased, and so concerned for his safety. He and Timothy quickly began cutting ropes, while the soldiers attacked the other Celts left to guard the prisoners. When Vipsania was free, he gave her the knife, then she and Lucilla began to cut Quintus' ropes. One of the Celtic guards had managed to yell a warning, but by now there was furious fighting going on in the forest. Some Celts turned back towards the camp, but by the time they were half way towards the small Roman squad, the prisoners were free, and were being escorted back towards the horses.
Then instead of fleeing, Gaius ordered the advance. The charging Celts, instead of reaching the unguarded backs of Roman soldiers, found themselves charging straight at the soldiers. Then, just as they were about to reach them, Gaius ordered the shields locked. As the Celts impacted onto the shields the Romans leaned forwards, and as the Celts at the rear ran into those held on the shields, the stabbing started.
After a few brutal minutes, this little battle was over, however two Celts with less courage, or more sense, had begun to run towards the forest well away from where the previous fighting had occurred. Gaius let fly an arrow, which struck one in the back and brought him to the ground, then a second that struck the other man on the shoulder. However, the man ran on, and disappeared into the forest. Two soldiers gave chase, but were unsuccessful. The soldiers were about to kill the wounded Celts, but Gaius stopped them, and ordered the immediate recovery of every pilum and arrow that was available then a retreat to the horses. Killing the wounded to maintain secrecy was pointless once one man had escaped.
As Gaius approached the horses, Vipsania rushed towards him and hugged him. Gaius quickly kissed her, then asked her to get onto one of the horses. He turned to Lucilla, gave a quick smile of greeting, and pointed to a second horse. Those wounded were placed on horses, and only two horses remained, one of which carried supplies, and one carried Gaius' writings and metal objects. Quintus, who up until this moment had been letting anyone who was interested know how badly the Celts had treated him, strode towards the horse carrying Gaius' supplies.
"You will leave that horse alone," Gaius said coldly.
"But I have to ride! And this is only. . just junk!"
"You will run with the rest of the men," Gaius said simply.
"You can't order me around! I'm not. ."
"You are correct. Technically, I can't order you, but I don't have to take you either. You don't have to run. If you want to walk, and take your chances with the Celts. ."
"You don't like me, do you?" Quintus gave a surly scowl. "You think I took your wretched corn. ."
"We can argue about that later. Either walk, or take this rope and lead this. . whatever!" Gaius said coldly, and handed him the rope holding the demon.
"Who. ? What??" Quintus gasped.
"I have no idea," Gaius shrugged, "although I hope to find out. But first, we have to get out of here. Centurion! Two advanced scouts. We give them a couple of minutes, then we move, at the double for the first hour. We go northwest until we are out of sight of this camp, then, since we have to assume the main band will come back here and the prisoners will tell them which direction we went, I want to go in some other direction. When we turn, I also want an option where it is not obvious that we have changed direction. No soft mud to leave horses' footprints, either way. Tell the scouts the emphasis is on trying to conceal where we eventually go."
"Yes, sir."
Gaius looked around. Everything seemed as satisfactory as it was going to get. There was no sign of Celts, and the Romans had organized themselves with the efficiency expected of them. Quintus was standing around grumbling about this and that, but nobody was taking much notice of him.
Everybody was taking glances of the demon, but were almost too afraid to look directly at it. On the other hand, the demon itself seemed to be less than confident, and it was searching around, cowered, but looking for some means of escape.
Vipsania seemed fascinated by it, and, when Gaius came over towards her, she asked in an almost awed tone, "What is that?"
"It's a member of some race which obviously isn't human. They're far more advanced than we are, and if there's enough of them who wanted to, they could conquer and enslave the entire Roman people."
"But that's. ."
"It means that finding out who they are, and what they're doing, is a prime goal."
"Then you'll have to make peace with them," Vipsania pointed out.
"I guess so," Gaius nodded. That thought had not occurred to him, and in fact he had been so busy organizing the escape that up until now he had not even considered the problem of what to do with the demon.
"In which case," Vipsania offered, "you should untie him or her, and try to treat him or her reasonably."
Gaius stared at her, then nodded. "You're quite correct," he said. It had not occurred to him that he might need cooperation from this demon, and he was still far from convinced that he could ever trust it far enough to let it out of his hands, but another niggling thought struck him: if there were more of these demons nearby, the situation could be reversed. If more demons turned up, what would he do? Fight? Try to negotiate? The latter was difficult, because the demon did not seem to understand him.