Rrowl-Captain's dreams were not pleasant.
They stalked him like a loud predator closing confidently on prey. Crippled bleeding prey, limping across a field without proper cover. Without allies or weapons.
There was no escape.
In his dream, he was still a crèche-kit, with no name other than Second Son of Graach-Gunner. He and his litter brother, First Son of Graach-Gunner, had been inseparable comrades in crèche. In their sleeping lair, after the illuminators were dimmed, they had often hissed and spat about what Hero-Names they would choose when they were both grandly honored for bravery.
As they surely would be so honored. Were they not brave kzinti, as they learned to stalk feral Jotoki in the hunting park?
It did not matter that the crèche teachers were guiding the development of their young muscles and growing hunt-skills with great care and attention to tradition. The pair were young, but would grow into an adulthood of honor, recipients of Hero's Blood for more octals of generations than could be counted.
They were kzin, feeders at the apex of the Great Web of Life. Was there any doubt that a Warrior Heart beat within each of their young chests?
First Son of Graach-Gunner wanted to someday take a Hero-Name from their family history, C'mef. Centuries before, another C'mef had died defending a foppish relative of the Riit against an usurping colonist kzin. Honor was more important than details to Graach-Gunner's family line; the Warrior Heart burned bright in all of them. C'mef would be a proud name to weave back into the honored tapestry of their lineage.
Second Son of Graach-Gunner had admired the liver and Warrior Heart of his litter-brother very much, and wished to honor him in turn. He had always followed his elder brother, claw to claw and fang next to fang against their crèche-foes. Second Son of Graach-Gunner had secretly chosen the name of C'mef's own litter-brother and duel-ally from that long dead time, Rrowl.
As it had been many centuries in the past, so it would be again, now and in the future. C'mef and Rrowl.
Or so Second Son of Graach-Gunner had thought, until his litter-brother had fallen from a rock castle during agility drills. The impact had broken his neck struts, killing First Son of Graach-Gunner instantly.
Second Son of Graach-Gunner was inconsolable, which was unseemly even for a crèche-kit. He had been perhaps too close to his litter-brother, and Graach-Gunner too gruff a father.
But every kzin must stand on his own as he wrestled honor and truth from the jaws of the One Fanged God. Graach-Gunner sent a Stalker in the Night to counsel and correct his second-youngest son's unkzinlike grief.
The Stalkers were priests-of-bad-tidings, coats and thoughts black as their names. They were from every Heroic line, even the Riit, just as the Warrior Heart was part of every kzin lineage.
From time to time, an occasional litter of kits included one or two ebony offspring; the Stalkers of the Night soon took the dark kittens away for training in the priesthood. They stood out in any group of kzinti, the everyday tawny orange with dark patches, spots, and stripes becoming something the eye ignored. A jet black kzin, with eyes the color of an angry sky, was odd and frightening.
Which was, after all, the point of the Stalkers in the Night. They reminded kzinti of the Warrior Heart's devotion to honor and bravery. They were living arbiters of the One Fanged God, much feared and respected.
"So, little one," the ebony figure had hissed at Second Son of Graach-Gunner that dark day. "Your litter-brother has fallen in battle. It is the Will and Claw-swipe of the One Fanged God."
Even frightened by the shadow-kzin priest, the crèche-kit had spoken up. "He fell from a high rock to die! How is that the Will of the One Fanged God?"
The kzin-priest was silent a long moment, then had coughed laughter. "Your fangs are not blunt, small one. But mine are sharper still." A black furred hand tipped with gleaming ebony claws appeared in front of his face, almost touching his eyes. "But you must learn respect to match your liver."
Second Son of Graach-Gunner had squeezed his eyelids closed in fearful obedience. It was the wrong choice.
"Look at me," the hissing voice roared, "Or I will peel your eyelids from your coward eyes like a vatach-pelt!"
Rrowl-Captain opened his eyes in fright, the dream dissolving into a chaos of sorrow, lost battles, and green-tinged monkey hell.
His hand leapt to his face, seeking the faint scar that had been left there so many years before by the Stalker in the Night.
He did not know where he was.
A false red sky loomed above him. The air carried odors that seemed right, but were somehow not. White traceries, like chachatta webs, clung to him. He carefully stood, brushing the webbing from his body. Sharpened-Fang was nearby, laying on its side on sandy soil.
The air was quiet, but his nose sniffed wetly at danger.
What has happened? Rrowl-Captain wondered to himself. The ugly aliens interrupting the battle with the monkeys shot my ship with some form of energy weapon . . . and then . . .
Something suddenly occurred to Rrowl-Captain, making him forget the strangenesses around him. All trace of his radiation sickness, a last dark gift from the monkey trap, was gone.
Rrowl-Captain felt well fed and healthy. It should not be so.
"Greetings, Honored One," hissed and spat a voice in the Hero's Tongue behind him, but pitched as high as a tiny kitten's. "We must speak to you, having need of your bravery and honor."
Rrowl-Captain whirled, and saw a hole hanging in midair. No, he realized, more like a window. Through it, he saw strange forms, with three legs and two heads. Rrowl-Captain could see what were surely weapons carried by the larger of the beasts, and smiled a needle grin in challenge.
Then Rrowl-Captain saw the human-monkeys standing behind the alien vermin. The monkeys that had stolen his name and honor. He would taste their blood in his jaws, and that of the other creatures. A holy Rage took him, and he screamed and leaped in fury, throwing himself at his enemies with claws and fangs bared.