Free Night Winds by Karl Edward Wagner

Of calling upon his shade for the strength to lead my race back to its lost glory! So I'll stand before King Brotemllain, and I'll lift his crown from his brow with my own hands! And when I return, my people will see and listen and know that the tales of our ancient greatness are history, not myth!
    "Now come on and help me widen this crevice, will you? You can clear away this smaller stuff. This cavern's stood for millennia; We can risk another few minutes."
    Kane cursed and joined him at the barrier, reflecting that it was useless arguing with a fanatical giant. Grimly he hauled back on a boulder jammed against the inner face of the blockage.
    Sudden tearing groan and Dwassllir's gasp of dismay gave him barely enough warning. Kane catapulted backward just as the unbalanced rock slide protested their trespass. Like the irresistible fist of doom, the rock shelf burst from the wall and smashed against the opposite side.
    Deafened by the concussion, pelted by splintered fragments, Kane twisted frantically to roll clear. He fell in a bruised huddle past the foot of the steps. For a moment of dazed confusion it seemed that the entire cavern rocked and bucked with a crescendo repercussion of the collapsed passageway.
    When the last slamming echo had lost its note, the final chunk of cracked stone bounced past, Katie groggily sat up to lick his wounds. Sore, but no bones broken, a long gash down his left shoulder. His sword arm was numb where a rock splinter had struck, and it would need bandaging to staunch the trickle of blood. Relatively unscathed, he decided, considering he had nearly been crushed deader than King Brotemllain.
    His sword was still sheathed, but the torch had been lost as he leaped away, and the chamber was as dark as a tomb could get. Kane did not need a torch to learn the worst; the absence of any ray of light told him that. King Brotemllain's tomb was also sealed as thoroughly as any tomb need be.
IV: A Final Coronation
    Gloomily be felt his way back along the passage and pushed against the intervening wall of rock. There were boulders as wide as he was tall, and the spaces between were packed solid with lesser rubble. Given slaves and equipment enough, he might clear out another crevice. Dwassllir could perhaps burrow through, but the giant was probably a mangled keystone in the barrier right now.
    Burnt pitch stung his groping fingers, and Kane tugged the extinguished torch out from under some debris. Since there secured little else to do, he sat down and struck a fire. The torch alight once more, the rock slide appeared no less substantial. Angrily Kane kicked at a toppled boulder.
    Air fanned the torch flame, however, pointing a yellow beckoning finger back into the burial cavern. Remembering this cave was a branch of a greater plexus, Kane eagerly sought to trace the faint stir of wind.
    As he crossed the chamber, Kane saw the effects of the rock slide within the cavern. The sudden grinding force had sent a shudder through the tired stone, so that stalactites had plummeted like crystal lightning bolts from their eternally dark heaven. One had missed spearing Brotemllain by scant yards.
    A sighing wind breathed corpse breath through a gaping pit many yards across at the cavern's one end. The explosive concussions that rocked the stone had not been the fantasy of a head blow then. Evidently in the chain reaction shock wave which the slide had drummed the brittle stone, a large section of rock from the high ceiling had struck here. Its impact had driven through the chamber floor to reveal another cavern beneath this one. The network of caves must bore through the mountains like the tortuous course of a feasting worm, thought Kane, peering into the pit.
    Wind gusted faintly through the hole, bringing a sick smell of dampness--a stale, unclean animal smell that intrigued Kane. It seemed he could hear the rush of unseen waters. An underground river probably--deep underground it must be, too. The wind stole in