Wheels of Fate

In the final days of the Moving Age, when cities no longer stood still and the world had forgotten what it meant to be rooted, the earth groaned beneath the weight of steel titans. The Traction Cities, once built to survive, had become predators — devouring the weak to fuel their survival.

Among them, Draventh, an aging city of blackened towers and flame-belching stacks, was the last of the Great Predators. Its engine-heart pulsed like thunder, and its iron jaws had consumed a hundred towns. But age, like rust, erodes all things — and the world was running out of prey.

High in its citadel tower, General Kael Virex, the last Warden of Draventh, stared into a cracked monitor. He saw only duststorms and ruins beyond — no cities, no resources. Only silence. And silence meant death.

“This is the end,” his advisor muttered. “Draventh can’t run much longer.”

Kael clenched his fists. “Then we make the earth bleed one last time.”

Far across the wastes, hidden beneath layers of sand and deception, lay Tellur Vale — a rumored sanctuary, a myth spoken in whispers. It was not a city on wheels, but a remnant of the Old Earth: still, rooted, and alive with gardens, tech, and peace. Its founders had rejected motion, choosing to vanish from the war of machines.

No one knew for sure if Tellur Vale was real — no one but Aerin Myrr, a teenage scavenger with a chipped eye-lens and a knack for navigating forgotten places. She’d been raised on a half-dead town swallowed by Draventh ten years before. Her parents were killed, but she escaped, vowing to one day stop the moving madness.

Now, she crouched beneath the undercarriage of a wrecked skirmisher unit, holding a stolen map etched into glass. The map glowed faintly, powered by a tiny solar cell.

"Tellur Vale..." she whispered. It was real. And Kael Virex was coming.

Draventh’s engines roared as it moved for one final hunt. A beast with nothing to lose, Kael sent out a message across the frequencies:

“To all remaining settlements: Surrender or be harvested. The final war is upon us.”

But as the message crackled across the frequencies, something unexpected came in response:

“Come then, Warden. But know this: the earth remembers. And so do we.”

It was Aerin’s voice, broadcast from a hijacked relay tower.

Kael froze. “Who was that?”

“A ghost,” someone whispered.

Aerin raced toward Tellur Vale, carrying the map through storm and sand, chased by Draventh’s scout drones. She had no army, no weapons — just knowledge, determination, and a secret.

Tellur Vale had technology the rest of the world had forgotten — ancient terraforming systems, energy weapons, and the means to anchor even a traction city. A device called the Earthspike — able to pierce a city's engine-core and pin it in place permanently, ending its motion forever.

Aerin had only to reach it in time.

Kael remembered the girl now — the eyes, the fury. She had escaped the purge. He admired her resolve, even as he ordered her death.

But deep down, something twisted in him.

Once, long ago, Kael had dreamed of stillness too. He had seen gardens on old data scrolls. But Draventh gave no room for dreamers — only survivors. And Kael had survived too long to change.

The final confrontation came at dusk.

Aerin stood before a canyon pass leading into Tellur Vale. Draventh approached, casting a shadow miles wide, its wheels splitting the rock beneath.

“Stand down,” Kael’s voice echoed from loudspeakers.

“No,” Aerin replied. She lifted the Earthspike control unit, a small, pulsing box wired to the ground.

“You can’t stop a city.”

“I don’t have to. The ground will.”

She pressed the trigger.

For a moment, nothing happened. Then — a surge of tremors. The Earthspike launched upward from beneath, a giant spike of alloyed crystal and iron, lancing into Draventh’s engine-core from below. The city shuddered. Screamed.

Kael felt the floor split beneath him as gears tore free and fuel lines snapped.

Aerin watched as the great machine faltered — and then stopped.

For the first time in a century, Draventh ceased to move.

The silence was deafening.

Kael emerged from the ruins, limping. His uniform torn, his pride shattered.

“You... pinned it,” he said, staring at the girl.

“Yes,” Aerin said. “It’s over.”

He looked at the still earth, the rooted gardens beyond.

“So this is what peace looks like.”

“You could help us rebuild,” she said, surprising even herself.

He paused. “I don’t know how.”

“We’ll teach you.”

Kael looked once more at the horizon, then stepped toward Tellur Vale.

The wheels had turned long enough. It was time to stop.

THE END

In a world driven by motion, it was the still ones who survived.