The fleet departed Hannover at first light, not as a procession but as a moving horizon.
From the harbour walls, it was impossible to count the ships. They filled the grey water from shore to shore, ships of the line riding deep and heavy, vast troop transports with high blunt bows, supply hulks stacked with timber, powder, and grain, and fast escorts weaving constantly along the flanks like alert hounds. Masts crowded the skyline so tightly that the rising sun broke through them in shards, turning rigging into a lattice of fire.
Above it all flew the golden eagle of Luxenberg on dark blue, repeated thousands of times. Flags cracked in the wind, answering one another down the line until the sound became a rolling thunder of canvas.
More than a million soldiers were packed within its hulls, infantry regiment upon regiment, cavalry dismounted, but restless, artillery crews guarding guns lashed into reinforced decks. Below, the ships smelled of salt, iron, sweat, oil, and discipline. Men stood shoulder to shoulder in ordered silence, knowing that what awaited them at journey's end would be decided not by chance, but by scale.
When the signal guns fired, the sea itself seemed to recoil.
Anchors were raised in waves. Oars dipped. Sails blossomed outward in near-unison, transforming the fleet into a moving city, one that began to slide eastward, then southeast, then steadily toward the long route that would carry it through straits and open seas, around coasts known and hostile, toward Basra, the northern port that stood as the key to the continent.
The days that followed blurred into a rhythm of wind and water.
The fleet moved as a single organism, adjusting its vast body to the moods of the sea. Columns tightened and loosened with practised precision; escorts swept ahead to sound depths and watch the horizon; signal flags rose and fell in steady cadence from mast to mast. At night, lanterns marked each division, constellations mirrored on black water, so dense they made the ocean seem shallow.
Supply ships threaded constantly through the formation, feeding the beast they carried. Fresh water was rationed, bread baked in shipboard ovens day and night, and horses, thousands of them, were walked, watered, and calmed below deck. Orders travelled by trumpet and flag, repeated until they became instinct. Discipline held, because it had to. A million men could not be allowed to drift.
Storms came and were absorbed. Heavy seas battered the outer ranks, snapping spars and tearing canvas, but replacements were already waiting, sails bent and ready, crews moving without panic. When a transport fell behind, tugs and escorts closed in, hauling it back into place as if nothing had happened. The fleet did not slow.
As the route bent toward warmer waters, the air thickened. The smell of pitch and salt gave way to heat and dust carried from distant coasts. Lookouts began reporting unfamiliar sails, curious traders at first, then fast messengers fleeing ahead of the armada. Word was spreading faster than the ships themselves.
On the flagship, charts were unrolled and weighted at the corners. Soundings were reviewed. Landing zones marked and remarked. The northern port was discussed not as a city, but as a sequence of problems: the harbour mouth, the outer batteries, the beaches beyond the breakwater, the roads leading inland. Each problem had an answer, and most of those answers involved numbers that could not be matched.
As the weeks wore on, the sea grew crowded with signs of abandoned fishing boats, drifting cargo, and the occasional burned hulk. At dusk one evening, smoke was sighted far to the east, thin and vertical.
"Signal fires," an officer said quietly.
The fleet held course.
On the final night before landfall, the armada slowed just enough to compress itself, ranks closing until the water between hulls vanished. Lanterns were hooded. Drums were silent. Only the steady creak of timber and the low slap of waves remained.
Then dawn broke, sharp and clear. Basra rose on the horizon, walls pale against the land, towers stark, the harbour already alive with frantic motion. Bells rang. Signals flashed. It had never seen a fleet like this.
Sails filled the sea from edge to edge. The golden eagles lifted into the light. And the water itself seemed to darken beneath the shadow of Luxenberg's arrival, as the greatest armada the region had ever known bore down upon the northern port, unstoppable, patient, and vast beyond comprehension.
Field Marshal Bayezid was stationed in Basra; he had predicted that the first strike of the Luxenberg invasion would be there. He had 250,000 soldiers stationed in the city, along with an additional 50,000 garrison militiamen. This was a third of the Sultanate's army. Victor would meet his toughest challenge right away.
There were two ideas on how to approach this siege. Idea number one was using his warships to bombard the city and the 10 small warships protecting the harbour. It was a decent idea, but it would be costly to try to land troops in the harbour. Idea number two was to travel and land 20 kilometres east of the city. From there, the entirety of the army could be on land, which would be advantageous in terms of numerical advantage.
Out of the two ideas, Victor preferred the second idea. He gave an order to Grand Admiral Nelson to move the fleet east and land. It would only take an hour or two to get to the landing point.
Once they found a suitable place to land, row boats were rowed ashore. Thousands of soldiers began to form a defensive perimeter and begin creating a temporary camp. The heat was outstanding; the desert sun beat down on the men as they were working to set up the camp.
Many of the soldiers were sweating like pigs, their usually organised movement was slowly turning lethargic. Victor knew that his men needed to take the city immediately. Once they take the city, they can have better accommodation and a place for them to establish a supply line from Asharan to Bulgar.
It would take three days until the first shot was fired.