Death - Flaming boulder

Death was in the midst of a veritable ring of Phantom Guards when one of the flame-clawed demons dug its talons into the wall, ripped loose a chunk of stone twice its own size, and hurled it.
It was an attack he’d never anticipated, and for all his agility, the press of Phantom Guards meant that the Horseman couldn’t evade its flight.
Neither could at least three of the demons surrounding him, but that would prove little consolation in the moments to come.
The slab of rock—which seemed, impossibly, to have ignited beneath the demon’s flaming claws—slammed Death to the unyielding floor. Several of his attackers were pulped or incinerated, and it was only the Horseman’s greater resilience and swift reflexes that partially saved him. He lay pinned, his left side in flaring agony, fire licking at his arm, his shoulder, his neck. He could actually hear the sizzling as some of his hair, and bits of his skin, boiled away.
He did not scream—that would be a satisfaction Death would never offer any foe—but it was a near thing.

***

Chapter 17