Children of a Sunless Land (The Deaf Swordsman Series No. 1)

By R. Janvier del Valle

"Children of a Sunless Land" is the first installment in the "Deaf Swordsman Series".

Told in serial form, the Deaf Swordsman Series is a collection of stories featuring the fantastical deaf swordsman, Vohro Vahllenu. These set of stories is a sprawling epic of good and evil, bringing together the supernatural and weird, featuring dark fantasy adventures sure to resonate with both the hardcore and casual reader of dark fantasy literature.

The stories begin and end in chaos, promising the reader a wild ride through the darkest bowels of the imagination while offering moments of deep reflection. Here are the terror-inducing tales of children clad in beastly armor, of people consumed by their own shadows, and of dark nights spent under the auspices of an angry moon.

Embark on perilous journeys into unknown places like an abandoned asylum floating in the open, midnight sky, or an eerie forest characterized by the continuous sounds of echoing whispers. These are some of the places you'll venture into, following a fierce avenger armed with nine of the deadliest blades known to mankind, as he rides from the seen into the unseen, where hope and doom are bound only by the thinnest threads of humanity.

Series No. 1: Children of a Sunless Land: 8,000 words (the equivalent to 30 paperback pages).

*Includes illustrations.

• Language: English
• Publisher: R. Janvier del Valle
• Release date: Feb 6, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301699711

R. Janvier del Valle

R. Janvier del Valle holds a Bachelor of Business Administration from Kennesaw State University and a Master of Theological Studies from Spring Hill College. He has worked in the Advertising, Marketing, and Communications industries for over ten years and has taught a number of classes in philosophy and theology to adults as well as children.He resides with his wife and daughter in Georgia. When he isn't writing, he's sleeping. And when he's not sleeping, he's spending time with his family, running, hiking, hitting the gym, watching movies, buying overpriced one-sixth scale action figures, studying and reading philosophy and theology, and most of all, collecting pointy, shiny things that tend to gleam of a certain silver whenever exposed to the moonlit eventide."In necesariis unitas, in dubiis libertas, in omnibus caritas."

Book preview

OTHER BOOKS BY R. JANVIER del VALLE

SWORD FROM THE SKY SERIES (NOVELS)

Book One: The Blade School of Daví

Book II: Onward Unto An Endless Night (2013)

THE DEAF SWORDSMAN SERIES (NOVELLAS)

No. 2: The Abandoned Asylum of the Good Doctor Fangtasahd

No. 3: Along the Many Houses of Damnation

No. 4: Beauty in a Land of Sorrow

No. 5: Where the Frost Reigns (2013)

No. 6: The Golden Queen (2013)

No. 7: The Veil of Vanity (2013)

No. 8: The Hound of the Moon (2013)

No. 9: Escape from the Sunless Land (2013)

SILAS DE SAN MICHEL MYSTERY SERIES (NOVELS)

To Kill and Kill Again (2013)

"The man was a marriage of monk and savage, of scholar and assassin…a brute at times, he had a touch of the pagan barbarian…yet was the brightest of philosophers and had the grace of a spirited healer. On a quest to find his missing child, he took to a higher calling, driven by something greater, as if that one mission was just an excuse to truly enact his divine destiny. Restless and sour as the dank, gray air of the moon, he was reliable in only one respect--he was wired since birth to destroy evil--in all manners, in all forms. This was the deaf swordsman, Vohro Vahllenu--the man with nine blades."

CHILDREN OF A SUNLESS LAND

THE OLD MAN KEPT STARING AT THE TALL RIDER’S eyes, so big and striking, like the blooming flowers of a morning meadow. What was that? he said, having difficulty discerning the tall rider’s words, for the man on the horse had been deaf since birth and could only speak with a muted tone. I couldn’t understand you, traveler.

Have you seen this child? said the rider whose eyes were kin to the moon, for overbearing those eyes were, enveloping everything surrounding him and casting their light on the man who had dared to question him twice. Take a look at the girl in the drawing.

Intimidated by rider’s soft speech, the man took another look at the picture. I haven’t seen her, he said. Truly, I haven’t.

The man on the horse, Vohro Vahllenu, placed the drawing back inside his dark poncho-like garment, and he grasped the reins of his horse with a fortuitous grip, forcing his veins to bulge out of his soft, leather gauntlets. He positioned his wide-brimmed hat back on his head, casting a patch of shadow diagonally across his face, leaving one eye to the caverns of the night, and the other, to the gleam of the silver eventide.

The old man took a few steps back, now wary of the rider’s presence. I swear to you, I haven’t seen the girl, he said.

Calm your nerves, said Vohro. You have nothing to fear from me. I thank you for your honesty. But I pray, do tell--why do you seem so spooked beyond your grave? As he said this, Vohro turned his eyes to the man’s family behind him, seated