Crack!

The vicious cracking of a long leather whip cut through the dead silence of the room and landed, tearing across Legolas's back.

He was in the so-called Screaming Room, large domed room of solid rock and filled with various torture devices.  After his failed attempt to escape, he'd been roughly shoved along as the guards had escorted him to the torture chamber.  There he'd been shackled onto a wooden frame.  Then the rough hands of the hooded minions had ripped his leggings up to the middle of his thighs, exposing as much flesh as they could to increase the pain that he would suffer.  And his torture had begun.  Already, he'd been in there for half an hour, maybe longer. 

Crack!

How many lashes of the whip he had endured, he no longer knew.  But each lash found a new place to rip at his flawlessly smooth flesh, until he was raw and bleeding from a network of wounds that ran over his back in an interlacing series of slashes.  But throughout, Legolas had not cried out in pain, which greatly frustrated his assailants.  He merely set his jaw and closed his eyes, body tense throughout the entire ordeal.  Now the whip cracked with fury, leaving only seconds between them.

Crack!  Crack! Crack!

Another stroke of the barbed metal tips of the whip landed upon him.  This one cut across the base of his neck, an area that had previously been left untouched.

Still, no sound escaped his lips.  They would not break his spirit that easily.

He tensed for the next blow, but none came.  Half fearing to, Legolas opened his eyes.  Still no stroke fell upon him.  Almost, he let out a sigh of relief, but held back and the last moment, thinking that if he showed anything but a detached emotionless state, the torture would continue.

"Enough," he heard the leader say.  "We need him alive…for now."