For details about using CQL with Cassandra and Hector, see:
https://github.com/rantav/hector/wiki/Using-CQL
The following mail list thread is a good discussion on where we will be going with CQL as an API:
http://groups.google.com/group/hector-users/browse_thread/thread/540dc9c3908fbb44/f5ee488f2178e2f4