A Malazan Book of the Fallen Collection 1

'I saw the Hounds killed by Rake's sword. Then I touched the blood of one of the slain beasts.'
    'That explains their confusion. They thought you one of their own ... at first. You were wise to submit to that Hound's challenge.'
    'Too frightened to move, you mean.'
    The stranger laughed. 'Even so.'
    'What is your name?'
    'Names are meaningless. Rake killed me. Long ago. That is enough.'
    Paran fell silent. Eternity, chained here, forever pulling. And I ask for the man's name. Would any apology suffice?
    The wagon bucked savagely, earth ripped from under its wheels. Figures fell, wailing. The Hounds howled their fury.
    'Gethol's Breath,' the stranger gasped. 'Will they never cease?'
    'I don't think they will,' Paran said. 'Can those chains be broken?'
    'No. None have managed it yet, that is, and there are dragons among us. But these Hounds ...' He sighed. 'It is astonishing, but already I long for the peace their arrival has shattered.'
    'Perhaps I can help.'
    The stranger barked a laugh. 'By all means, try.'
    Paran moved away, heading towards the Hounds. He had no plan in mind. But I alone am unchained. The thought stopped him and he smiled. Unchained. No one's tool. He continued on, wondering. He passed figures straining step by step, some silent, some muttering in madness. None raised its head to glance as he passed. The sound of bestial gasping reached him. 'Hounds!' Para called. 'I would help!'
    After a time, they appeared from the gloom. Blood sheathed their shoulders and chests, the flesh torn and mangled by the collars. The Hounds trembled, muscles jumping along their flanks. Their eyes, level with Paran's own, met his with such numbed, helpless misery that his heart lurched. He reached out to the odd-eyed one. 'I would examine your collars, your chains, seeking a flaw.'
    The beast walked alongside him – they were ever moving forward, the wagon unceasing in its roll. Paran bent close, running his hands on the collar, seeking a join. There was none. Where the chain attached, the link and the collar seemed of one solid piece. Though he knew little of smithing, he believed this attachment would prove the weakest element and should already show signs of strain. But his fingertips told him otherwise. The iron was not even scratched.
    Paran ran his hand along the chain, leaving the Hound's side. He paused noticing the other beast watching his every move, then continued on. From the animal to the wagon, over seventy armspans of length, he ran his hands from link to link, seeking a change in the feel of the iron, seeking heat, gouges. Nothing. He arrived alongside the wagon. The wheel he walked behind was solid wood, a span in width, nicked and gouged but otherwise featureless. The wall of the bed was twenty or more feet high. The slatted sideboards of withered, bone-grey wood showed spaces a finger's width between. Paran flinched back on seeing skeletal fingers crowding the cracks, wriggling helplessly.
    The wagon's frame beneath the sideboards drew his attention. Here the wood was black, glistening with pitch. Chain-ends entered it, countless in number, sinking seamlessly into the wood. Under his touch the frame seemed solid, yet it was as if the chain links passed through it – whatever held them, then, was beyond the wagon's frame. Paran drew a deep breath of the cool, stale air, then ducked under the bed.
    The frame's beam was a dozen spans thick, condensation dripping down from its pitched underside in endless rain. At the inside edge Paran found once again the chains, continuing on further under the wagon. Grasping one, he followed it inward. The links grew colder as did the air around him. Before long he was forced to release the chain, his hands burned by the cold. The rain from the underside of the wagon came down as slivers of ice. Two paces ahead, the chains converged, swallowed by a suspended pool of absolute darkness. Cold poured from it in pulsing waves. Paran could get no closer.
    He hissed in frustration as he scrambled along opposite the dark hole, wondering what to do next. Even if he managed to break a chain, he had no idea which ones belonged to the Hounds. As for the others ... Anomander Rake seemed a creature of clear – if cold – justice. To break a chain could unleash ancient horrors upon the realms of the living. Even the stranger he'd spoken with could once have been a Tyrant, a horrible dominator.
    Paran unsheathed Chance. As the blade leaped free of the scabbard it bucked wildly in