Skirmisher Publishing LLC is proud to announce the electronic release of Swords of Kos: Necropolis, the first entry in its new line of fantasy fiction! Inspired by the works of classic swords-and-sorcery authors like Fritz Lieber, Jack Vance, and Robert E. Howard, it is Texas author Michael O. Varhola’s eleventh book and is illustrated with a series of beautiful images by veteran fantasy artist Amanda Kahl (172 pages; $3.99 PDF/$7.95 POD and Print; ISBN 978-1-935050-15-5; SKP E 1222). It is available through a variety of online venues, including DriveThruRPG and DriveThru Fiction.

A trade paperback print edition of the book will be released at the Comicpalooza fan convention in Houston during Memorial Day Weekend, May 25-27. It will be available directly from Skirmisher Publishing and through Amazon.com and other retail sites.

Swords of Kos: Necropolis follows the adventures of Paros, a streetwise rogue with a penchant for alchemy, Parthenia, a savage female Elf barbarian, and Selene, a priestess of the outlawed Titan moon goddess, as they brave the hazards of a long-abandoned cemetery and the catacombs that lie beneath it. Dangerous though the hazards and supernatural guardians of this place are, an even greater threat might be the Necropolis itself ...

Following are the first two paragraphs of Swords of Kos: Necropolis: 

“Paros could only venture a guess as to how many graves the forsaken burial ground in the little valley before him contained. North to south, it ran about a half mile and, from where he stood beside the wrought-iron fence that zigzagged along its eastern edge, it stretched about a quarter mile to the base of the hills that surrounded it. The rolling, broken ground of this unkempt area was heavily overgrown with grass, vines, copses of scrubby little oaks and brushy gray-green juniper, great clumps of flowers in every color, and probably every other sort of vegetation native to the island of Kos. Obelisks, statues of patron deities, and other stones marking the gravesites of families and individuals lay broken and tumbled amongst the rampant growth, and mausoleums of every size were interspersed throughout.

Paros did not know the extent to which this place had been looted over the century since it was last known to have been used but there were undoubtedly hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of graves that had not yet been pillaged. And they were not even the object of their quest, which was marked by the small, columned temple of black marble that he could see halfway up one of the hills at the other end of the cemetery. And there was no telling what else might be hidden within this wild, desolate place. ... “