The Ice Limit
Chapter One
Isla Desolación
January 16, 1:15 p.m
The valley that had no name ran between barren hills, a long mottled
floor of gray and green covered with soldier moss, lichens, and
carpha grasses. It was mid-January-the height of summer-and the
crevasses between the patches of broken rock were mortared with tiny
pinguicula flowers. To the east, the wall of a snowfield gleamed a
bottomless blue. Blackflies and mosquitoes droned in the air, and
the summer fogs that shrouded Isla Desolación had temporarily broken
apart, allowing a watery sunlight to speckle the valley floor.
A man walked slowly across the island's graveled flats, stopping,
moving, then stopping again. He was not following a trail-in the
Cape Horn islands, at the nethermost tip of South America, there
were none.
Nestor Masangkay was dressed in worn oilskins and a greasy leather
hat. His wispy beard was so thick with sea salt that it had divided
itself into forked tips. It waggled like a snake's tongue as he led
two heavily burdened mules across the flats. There was no one to
hear his voice commenting unfavora ... read full excerpt from: The Ice Limit ebook
