"The Shadow Kingdom" is a fantasy novelette by American writer Robert E. Howard, the first of his Kull stories, set in his fictional Thurian Age. It was first published in the pulp magazine Weird Tales in August 1929. The story introduces Kull himself, the setting of Valusia, Brule the Spear-Slayer (a supporting character), and the Serpent Men (who don't appear in any other work by Howard, but were adopted by later authors for derivative works and inclusion in the Cthulhu Mythos). "The Shadow Kingdom" has been described as the first true "sword and sorcery" story, because of its barbarian hero, its mix of horror and adventure, and because the story is set in an imaginary world. Source: Wikipedia (en)