Kwa and the Ape People by Perley Poore Sheehan

KWA had sprung from the back of the lion and run up a well-remembered path. It was a path leading to the Fire Cave of the Mu. He saw the entrance to the Fire Cave and of other caves where he'd lived and played as a child--shrouded now, as the Elephant Gate had been shrouded, with thick gray webs.

He slit the nearest web with strokes of his knife. The rags of it he tore away with his hands.