EXCERPT

The cry came again, louder this time, and followed by a bear's angry roar. Benjamin hurried on, to find the passageway dividing in two. One part circled away to his right, the other to his left, before meeting again on the far side. But on the far side of what? From where Benjamin was standing it looked like a brightly glowing hole!
Again the cry came, almost a shriek this time. It had come from deep in the hole. Sinking to his stomach, Benjamin slithered forward, ever closer, until finally he could peer over the edge and down.
He was looking into a high-walled pit. The walls were lined with torches. At the bottom was a small circle of dusty ground. And there, grovelling in the dirt as it cried with pain, was a creature beyond his imagining. Its head was the head of a bear. The sharp claws jutting viciously out from the ends of its arms and legs were the sharp claws of a bear. But those arms, those legs, and the rest of the creature's body was unmistakeably that of a human ...