Yona and the Beast

by CC Hogan

the calliston. “But I think he does.” She frowned slightly. “And I think the dragons did, too.”

  “In what way?” Phoran asked.

  Yona sat up. “Think about it. All that fighting, and that other beast screaming, and yet this big fellow was walking down the gorge only slowly. If I had been him, I would have been running. Then we all climbed up on his back and as soon as the last of us were up, he started trotting, like someone had commanded him.”

  “But how could they command him?” Daintine asked. “Beak says the animal has a damaged mind.”

  “I don’t know, Daintine, but they say callistons and dragons are related. Perhaps he understood something they shouted.” Yona shivered and looked north. “Oh, that storm is moving this way again. I think we should try to make more headway before dark.”

  “Some will object, but you are right,” the older woman told her. “That deer was welcome, but we are all frightened, Yona. Why are you so strong?”

  Yona looked into the woman’s eyes and shook her head. “Oh, Daintine, I am not!” She wiped away a sudden, unwelcome errant tear and went to wake the calliston.

  “She is strong, Daintine, whatever she says,” Phoran said. “Always has been. But she is frightened too.”

  “When we get to Epinod, I think a couple are heading west, but the rest of us have nowhere to go. You have, don’t you.”

  “Yes, we do. It is a long way, but our village is in the far south. We were some leagues from there when we were caught.” Phoran looked over to where Beva and Yona were laughing at a huge yawn from the waking calliston. “But I am not sure it is quite that simple,” he added quietly.

  “I can’t get him to stop!” Yona shouted back at Beak in panic. “He is speeding up!” The calliston had been heading south-east all afternoon without stopping. Now they had reached the growing river Cor-En and the big animal was charging towards the bank.

  “The river is deeper here!” Beak shouted, clambering up to join Yona on the neck. “I hope he can swim.”

  “I can’t!” Beva said, hanging on to the hide, her knuckles white. “I am going to drown!”

  “Hold on girl,” Phoran said, grimacing with pain as he wrapped his big arms around the small girl.

  Yona peered ahead. The sunlight had been failing rapidly, but she had let the calliston continue rather than stopping early. The winds had reached them in the afternoon and they had been caught in a massive thunderstorm; the more leagues south they covered today, the better. “Getting closer! Everyone hang on tight!”

  Beneath her, the calliston rumbled and let out a roar and he pushed his head forward. As they reached the stony bank, he almost jumped into the water, a huge wave pushing ahead of him, and he drove his way across. The river was much wider and faster here, having been joined by another behind the hills, and the big beast had to fight his way across. The humans hung on desperately, waves of cold water washing over the hide. Beva coughed and spluttered as she swallowed accidentally, and Phoran sat her up, banging her on the back with one arm as he hung on with another.

  “Nearly there!” Beak shouted.

  “Look out!” Yona warned as the calliston hit a channel and plunged deeper into the water, crying and bellowing in panic. Beak grabbed the man behind him who was sliding off the hide.

  “Help me!” he yelled at Yona. Yona caught hold of the man’s arm, but her hands were cold and she felt him slipping from her grasp.

  “Beva, hold onto the hide!” Phoran shouted as he leant over to help Yona and Beak. The man was panicking and fighting them to stay on.

  “Hold still,” Beak shouted at him, but it was too late. The man kicked and struggled in desperation, making it impossible for them to hold on to him, and then he fell backwards into the fast-moving river and washed away from them, sinking beneath the water. Phoran grabbed Yona as she nearly fell in after the man, and pulled her back onto the hide as the calliston found his feet and hauled himself up the bank, panting and gasping.

  Yona stared at the river. Another one. There had been thirty of them when they had reached the gorge and six of them had died in that freezing room. Now they had lost two more on the journey. She slid off the hides and went around to the head of the calliston. He looked as frightened as they, and as the others climbed down from his back, he lay down and curled his head around, tucking his large hands under his chin.

  “What happened?” Beak asked her. “Why did he do that?” The man was angry.

  “Look at him, Beak,” Yona snapped. “He is scared. Whatever the reason is that is driving him south, he had to cross the river and it frightened him.” She put her hand on the beast's face. She could feel him shaking. “There are trees over there. We need fires,” she said. Beak nodded and went to help the others as Yona sat on the ground by the large head. The calliston’s eyes were open wide and he shivered and grumbled.

  “Is he alright?” Beva asked in a small voice, sitting down and snuggling against Yona.

  “The river frightened him.”

  “Can’t he swim?”

  Yona looked down at the small girl, thinking about how the massive, powerful animal had struggled against the current, crying and roaring as he had crossed. “You are a clever one,” she said to the girl. “No, I don’t think he can.”

  Beva leant against the beast who shuddered and whimpered, almost nuzzling her. “I can’t swim either and I am frightened as well,” the girl said. Yona looked at the two. The small, thin, tired girl, only ten years of age, and the giant calliston, big enough to carry all of them crammed together on his muscled back. Suddenly, they really didn’t look very different at all. Softly, Yona started to sing to both of them, the unrequited mother inside feeling their fear.

  Dark though the night

  You hold me so tight

  Beneath the light of moons

  Until the light of day

  Oh, tender love

  Flying high above

  Sing now of romance true

  As with you I now lay

  Sleep here with me

  Beneath the oaken tree

  And we will dream of sun

  As we travel on our way

  The calliston and the child had fallen asleep. “And that is why I love you so much,” Phoran whispered in her ear as he knelt down behind her. Then he held her closely while she buried her head in his hair and cried. His turn to be strong.

  The morning saw a large fire, and a very pleased Beak and a man called Hekon brandishing rabbits.

  “We found an abandoned farm just in the woods there,” Hekon said as they handed the rabbits to Daintine to gut. To her delight and surprise, he gave her a small knife. “Seems like they left a few tools. Very rusty, but polished up on a rock and I am not complaining.

  “One old axe head,” Beak added. “A broken shovel and there is some canvas there; bit mouldy, but it should clean up.”

  “I will come and help,” Yona said, getting up from where she had been cleaning the wounds on Phoran’s back with some herbs and water. “Anything like pottery there?”

  “Some broken bits, but we haven’t looked through everything,” Hekon said. “I think it has been abandoned some years as the roof is half fallen in.”

  “Well, I suggest we stay here the day then,” the young woman said. “I know Noenna and two others want to head west into Epinod, but I suspect a day’s rest for them first would be sensible before they set off on foot.”

  “Are we still heading south?” Beak asked. “Not that I am complaining.”

  “I suspect so,” Yona said. “I think our big friend has decided to go where it is warmer, but I am not sure where that is. Whatever, he is certainly desperate enough to run south and cross a dangerous river.”

  The old, ruined house looked to Yona to be perhaps a woodsman’s cottage rather than a farm, but she thought Hekon had been right and it had been abandoned for many years. It took them an hour to rescue what they could and they dragged it
back to the others wrapped in the tatty canvases they had found. With a lot of cursing and struggling, they managed to get the canvases into the edge of the river and scrubbed them clean of moss and mould with stones, before hanging them from branches to dry.

  “Have you somewhere to go?” Yona asked Noenna as the woman used a tatty end of one of the canvases to make a small bag.

  “I have family in Essennor, I hope,” she said with a tired sigh. “Or I used to many years ago. I want to try.”

  “You could still come with us.”

  “Do you know where you are going?” Noenna asked, raising an eyebrow.

  Yona laughed. “No, possibly not, but every league we get further from the North, I feel better, and that is enough for now.”

  Noenna gave the young woman a hug. “You are very special, Yona. You and Beak and your man Phoran have kept us all going, even before we reached that terrible room. People will remember that you know. I will. Will you return to your village?”

  “I am not sure. Neither Phoran nor I have family. We are fisherfolk and we have both lost people to the sea. If our big friend goes that far south, then yes, perhaps. If not, then I don’t know. It is a very long way.”

  “Why do you feel so close to this beast? I know he has saved us, but so would have horses.”

  “Perhaps.” Yona looked over at the calliston who was drinking from the river while Beva sat on his neck, laughing at something. “There was once an intelligent person in there. He would have been able to speak like us,