coming from the navy , with its rigid adherence to seniority , laurence had often found the system confusing if not outright maddening , but it was a pragmatic concession to reality : dragons had their own native hierarchies , and in nature the twenty-year-old handler of a regal copper had more authority , on the battlefield , over the instinctive obedience of other dragons , than did a thirty-year veteran on the back of a winchester .