An army marches on its stomach, a common saying no matter what reality you ended up in, but Yalen had never realized just how much dragons eat. He’d had a pet snake once who consumed a rat every few weeks, if it felt in the mood. Kaa (he’d read too much Kipling in his youth) had been a rather sedentary fellow, prone to curling up inside his shirt for a nap. These creatures, though, were neither sedentary nor dainty eaters. The smallest, a dingy-green beast nicknamed Gap for a missing fang, ate two sheep on a daily basis and twice as much if there had been heavy fighting.

Still, the massive white blanket that stretched out behind the army, driven by nearly a hundred herders and their dogs, was a disturbing sight.