One gets Alexei, next to Svetlana. She shrieks and starts stabbing it with her boot knife.

Val turns, lines up her shot - but not in time to stop Alexei from being dragged off the skiff, though - he survived that, he's on the sands - 

And in her moment of distraction -

A volcra's claws tear into her shoulder.

"Val!"

She scrambles across the deck to her, grabs a dropped rifle, tries to shoot, it's jammed- "Val!" She grabs for her hand-

She grunts - strikes at the volcra with the butt of her rifle while she goes for her knife - stabs at the damn thing - 

It doesn't work. The skin's too thick, everywhere she can reach. The best she can manage is flailing long enough to slow it down, force it to shift its grip a little. 

She doesn't reach for Svetka's hand. She looks down as she being lifted into the dark, mouths I'm sorry - 

And throws her knife into the throat of a volcra that's swooping down at her friend. 

She grabs Val's leg. "I'm not letting you go."

That slows the volcra down a little; but if adding another person's weight could change things, they'd all be wearing packs full of stone.

The volcra shrieks, beats its wings harder, and others swoop in to support it. 

Val gets another knife out. She kills the next volcra that comes for Svetka.

She doesn't kill the one after. It grabs Svetka around the waist and starts dragging her away.

"No!"

It's not fair. They can't- they can't be separated. Not like this. She won't let it happen, she won't let go- (Even as the volcra's claws tighten painfully around her midsection and blood starts to seep.)

"VAL!" Her grip slips, she reaches- she reaches out-

And something answers.

An almighty glow radiates out from where Svetlana has a tenuous grasp on Valeriya's ankle. The volcra holding the pair of them are the first to shriek in pain, drop their prey, and flee, but they are not the last.

The light expands in a bubble, banishing the darkness of the Fold and sending the swarm reeling into its depths.

Then she hits the deck with a thud, and the light blinks out.

Svetka follows it into darkness.

Val falls to the deck, her vision entirely shot.

But she can hear - she scrambles to Svetka, finds her by touch - presses a cloth to her wounds, and Val's shoulder hurts like fuck even through the adrenaline, and she still has spots in her eyes - 

And the volcra are fleeing, even with the light gone, and there's other people alive on the skiff.

Still people alive on the sands.

(Her breath is coming in short, pained gasps. It won't stop, won't even out.)

-What in the name of all the Saints was that?

Deal with it later, she's got to wrangle this mess. Elvira picks herself up and starts snapping orders to get the survivors picked up and everyone moving to get the skiff in order again, striding across the deck.

"Tracker!" she barks. "What happened?"

" - I don't know." She can't see, still. The plunge back into darkness isn't helping - her eyes have pretty far to adjust.

She turns her head towards the Squaller anyways, of course, blinking rapidly. " - The volcra are still fleeing."

"...Let me know if they start returning."

She begins the task of getting the skiff turned around.

Val listens as she tries belatedly to bandage her own wound. It's bleeding kind of a lot. And - Svetka seems stable, right now.

Val will probably feel bad about not helping more later. But for now - she picks up her old gun, the knives she buried in volcra throats. A third knife someone dropped near enough she can get it without stopping touching Svetka. The first two go back in their sheaths; that one stays in her hand.

She stays hunched by Svetka, no matter what else happens. 

(She'll treat injuries if someone is dropped in front of her, and she'll drag Svetka into the center if they're setting up an area for the injured, and she'll help there. Otherwise - everything hurts, and she's having to crawl anyways. She shouldn't actually need her sight, she can do way more complicated things than walk around in the dark, but navigating anything close to her is making her nauseous right now. Like the world was thrown off kilter, gravity reoriented, and she's the only one who's noticed.)

She keeps track of the volcra that attacked them, and she pays attention to the faintest sounds on the edge of hearing. 

The volcra don't turn around before they get out of the Fold. There's that, at least. 

Then maybe this won't be a complete disaster.

She's still not looking forward to making her report.

The skiff returning like this is very unusual.

The crew are pulled to the side for further medical treatment - and kept together. They all have questions to answer.

Elvira is called separately to the Darkling's command tent, as the first to report.

"Sir." She's had some time to think, in between managing the return.

"-I think we've found a Sun Summoner."

"Who?"

"One of the mapmakers. Starkov."

She steps out to give an order that none of the skiff's crew are to be permitted to leave processing without her clearance, and none of the medical staff are to allow or encourage gossip.

And then she steps back in and asks for details. 

Elvira walks through the trip, from leaving to the volcra attack to the burst of light that drove them off.

"This tracker is a friend of Starkov's?"

"They're very close- though I am not sure what exactly the relationship is there."

Thoughtful hum. "Come with me," she orders then, standing.

She follows.