Prologue

The Supreme Council of Elders of the High Kirk had made their final choices; only five hundred parishioners and ministers could be saved, (including themselves of course):
"Fet ye deein wi yon quine?" Asked Tam hesitantly, as he turned the corner in the path and stumbled upon the appalling scene.
"Naan fr ye ta fekin' faas yesel aboot ye ald git, we's jess haain a wee wirdie, on yer fekin way, theres fekin nahin here fr'ee."
The speaker brought a short length of iron pipe from behind his back and made a shaking motion with it towards Tam, "Naathin yer fekin hear?"
His companions, one a tall gangling youth with shoulder length greasy hair that in some other time or place might have passed as blonde, the other was shorter with dark swarthy features, his head closely shaved in the current style, a long white scar snaked its way from his cheek bone up to his just visible hair line, puckering the skin around his left eye so that the misty blue, unseeing eye sat at a grotesque twisted angle. Both looked up from where they crouched over the girl, daring him to respond.
The girl he recognised instantly as seventeen year old Shona McLaughlan, her mother used to be one of his parishioners; he winced internally as the words 'used to be' crossed his mind. The trio must be incomers; from their accents which were not local, and the simple fact that he had never seen them before.
Shona was lying face down across a fallen gravestone, her back and legs were bare and he could see deep cuts and wheals which criss-crossed her fair skin, mind you there was not much of her fair skin still left to expose, she gave a moan and gulped a ragged gasp of air.
"Fet yer fekin gawking at noo? Gwan, piss off!"
'Pipe wielder' made another gesture with his length of pipe, the length of pipe which had probably been the cause of most of the physical damage sustained by the girl.
Tam could do nothing but abandon his intention to continue the way he had been heading, pipe wielder blocked his way down the path. He had only wanted one last walk through the old church yard. As he walked hesitatingly, retracing his steps, he heard the unmistakeable 'whack' of another blow being struck; there was a short strangled scream and then silence.
He glanced back, horrified at the sound, he could see 'pipe wielder' kneeling between the girl's outstretched legs, his trousers were now down around his knees, his white buttocks exposed.
Sickened, Tam looked away quickly, and then began running full pelt back down the path as fast as his fifty year old legs could carry him.
  'Wi a bit a luck, I'll be out if it a' in the morn, a'wa with the chosen' thought Tam with a slight tinge of sorrow, for he had once been the proud minister of the now derelict church that he ran from.
...... The naming was due to be published in the morning ..................