by CC Hogan
they caught us. The others are from different places.”
“And you are trying to get back there?”
“I don’t know,” Yona said tiredly.
“Why don’t you know?”
“Me and Phoran, we have a village to go to, but the others with us, some were travellers and many are from tiny places smaller than this. The men burnt them down and took who they wanted. They have nowhere to go.”
“How long have you been on the road?”
“Five days since we escaped.” Yona closed her eyes and cursed to herself. She had left out a lot of details, not sure what she should say, and she had said nothing about the how they had been travelling.
“Five days from the ridge on foot?” The woman commented in surprise.
“Ma!” Marrin clattered into the common room. “They got a bloody dummerhole!”
“What?” Golla’s eyes snapped open like a scared cat and then she frowned. “Marrin, what are the others like, son.”
The big man walked up to the bar. “They need you, ma. Need your help.”
“Alright. Go get the cart and fetch Sarrena and that lazy git of a husband of hers.” Suddenly the landlady sounded very much more serious and officious. “And you girl are going to tell me exactly what has happened to you and how you managed to escape from Wessen! Cos I don’t know of anywhere else that has one of those poor creatures.”
Yona couldn’t sit down and do nothing as ordered, and she and Daintine insisted on helping the big landlady and her friend tending wounds and giving out tonics, while Marrin and Beak built a fire and started roasting off two goats that the smith had brought in the back of the cart. In the meantime, Gorr, Sarrena’s husband, was looking carefully at the calliston.
“You not been directing him then?” he asked Yona as she put her hand on the broad face. The calliston rumbled softly. “Well, there is a thing, girl.”
“I think he is trying to find somewhere,” she told him. “We were told by a large dragon to climb on his back and as soon as we did, he started trotting. Once out on the plain, he just headed south to here.”
“Dragon, eh? What it look like?”
“I am not sure, sorry. Big, huge; I have never met one before.”
“Light brown?”
“Suppose so. It was only dawn and still dark.”
“Draig yr Anialr then,” Gorr said. “Desert dragon from Ponack. Wonder what they were up to? Not like them to be going into Tekkinmod’s territory.”
“Tekkinmod?” She hadn’t heard the name.
“That is who your slavers were working for. That was his hall you were at.”
“How do you know?”
“I was born in Ponack and lived there till I was twenty. Then my parents wanted to move down south, so I came with them to Markon Vale here.”
“You know anything about Callistons?”
“Never seen one, but we learned about them.” Gorr was tall and his manner was offhand, but despite Golla accusing him of being lazy, Yona saw only a clever, sharp-eyed man. “He is quite old I think.”
“How old?”
“Oh, I don’t know exactly, but you see no one has been creating Dummerholes for centuries, thank the gods. Golla had heard they had one up in Wessen, but I didn’t know about that when I was in Ponack.”
“They had two. One was all dressed in heavy leather.” Yona looked sad. “It was screaming and angry.”
“Oh, a war dummerhole. What happened to it?”
“I don’t know. The dragons were driving it back with rocks as we ran and climbed on the back of our friend here.” The calliston rumbled again as if he had understood her. “Where do you think he comes from?”
“Why do you ask?”
“I don’t know,” Yona said, yawning. “I am sorry; I am so tired. Oh, dear!” Suddenly she wobbled and Gorr leant forward to grab her, but before he had a chance, the calliston caught her and sat her gently on the ground.
“Well, I’ll be!” Gorr said, scratching his head.
“See, I told you to sit down girl,” Golla called out, heading over with a mug of hot tea. “Drink this.”
“Thank you,” Yona said. “Why are you being so kind to us?”
“Cos you need it,” Golla said dismissively.
Early the following morning, Yona was woken by the calliston. He was up on his feet, looking impatient, and making little wittering sounds.
“What is it?” Yona asked, trying to calm him down. The calliston lowered his head and nudged her, pushing her towards the village. “You want to head off again?” Yona sighed and looked at the others, still asleep. They were ragged and worn and Golla had insisted that they had to stop for at least a day. “We can’t, dear one. Hush!” The calliston was obviously upset. “You want me to sing to you? I don’t know what else to do.” He whimpered again. “Shush!” Very deliberately, she sat down cross-legged in front of the huge animal, looking up into his big eyes. Slowly, he calmed down, then he lay back on the ground. Briefly, he reached forward and touched her head with his big, clawed hand. She had been surprised how small his hands were. They were five or six times the size of a man’s, but the calliston was enormous, and they looked out of place. Beak had said he thought perhaps the hands were the size of a normal calliston which he believed would be half the size of the dummerhole. Yona reached up and held the big hand to the side of her face.
I love the morning
The way it wakes the world
I love the light wind of change
As it passes cross the land
I love the rays of hope
When they touch upon my face
And I love the way you look at me
With eyes so full of grace
I need you to love me
To trust that I love you
I need your arms around me
So the demons won’t win through
And I will walk right by you
As we journey on our way
And love you every bit as much
As I did on our first day
As she sung, the calliston put his head down and rested the soft nose of his great snout on her knees. Slowly he breathed out and closed his eyes.
By the trees, Golla climbed down from her cart, watching the distant scene.
“She is special that one,” she said.
“Like you, ma? A healer?”
“No, not a healer. I would know if she was. She has something, though.”
“You going to tell her about the calliston?”
“No. I asked Gorr to say something. Better coming from him as he comes from Ponack, but I think she has worked it out anyway. Come on, let’s get this fire started for these poor people. We can’t do much for them, but we can give them a day of ourselves.” Marrin reached down and wrapped his big arms around his round mother. “And what was that for?” she asked, taken aback.
“That is because you always do the right thing ma, and I love you for it!”
“Come on, you big lump!”
“So where was this village?” Beak asked Gorr as he, Yona and Phoran sat by the small stream in the woods. The day had warmed up and they were grateful not to be sat on the back of the calliston, but to rest. Most were sleeping, apart from Beva and the other two children. So typically, they seem to be recovering faster than the adults.
“Down in the Kelaine Hills, I think, though I don’t know exactly where. As far as I am aware it was abandoned several centuries ago, but I have no idea what happened to the callistons.”
Yona looked over to where their calliston was being teased gently by Beva though he seemed unperturbed. “That’s it, isn’t it,” she said, almost to herself. “He is trying to find his way home.”
“Could be,” Gorr said with a shrug. “I don’t know, but reckon he is old enough. Probably taken young, maybe ten or fifteen years old. If the other was the same size, they might have been taken together, but no way to know that for sure.”
“I don’t understand,” Phoran said. “Everyone keeps telling me that callistons are intelligent people. Why would anyone want to drill into their heads and use them like this?”
“Haftens it was that dreamt this up,” Gorr said bitterly. “That is what I was taught. They never did like the dragons and callistons much, apparently. That was a couple of thousand years back, though. I never thought to ever hear of a dummerhole, not in my time. I bet those dragons were upset.”
“What are they like?” Yona asked. “Where we are from in the south there are none. I never even knew of anyone who met a dragon. Might as well be fairy stories.”
“The desert dragons? Crazy, for the most part.” Gorr grinned, something they had not seen so far. “Loud too! Always shouting at each other or playing tricks. Never boring with dragons around, that’s for certain.” His smile dropped. “But they are deadly serious underneath the silliness. They look at the world differently from us you see. They don’t understand borders and they don’t look for differences between people. My mother was a rider when she was young. She said that from up there, in the sky, the world is so different. It is all joined up. Those desert dragons, they have a real thing about injustice, whether that is to dragons or humans. They will have been really upset about the dummerholes and they can be right evil buggers when they get upset.”
“Did you ride?” Beak asked.
“No, I didn’t. I wanted to, but I got a problem with my ear as a child and I lose my balance sometimes. No good on a dragon that, a thousand feet up. So I never did.”
“Sorry,” Yona said.
“Hmm.” The man looked at her. “You know, I talked to quite a few of you all