Kenway - Splinters

And then that feeling of the world crashing in, that shock, and those moments of wondering if you’d been hit and if maybe you were dead, and perhaps this was what it felt like in heaven. Or most likely – in my case at least – in hell. Which of course it must do, because hell is smoke and fire and pain and screaming. So in actual fact whether you were dead or not, it made no difference. Either way you were in hell.
At the first crash-bang I’d raised my arms to protect myself. Luckily. I felt shards of splintered wood that would otherwise have punctured my face and eyes embed themselves into my arm, and the force was enough to send me staggering back, tripping and falling.
They’d used bar shot. Big iron bars that would blast a hole in virtually anything provided they were close enough. In this case, they’d done their job. The English had no interest in boarding us. As pirates we would inflict as little damage upon our target as possible. Our aim was to board and to loot, over a period of days if needs be. It was difficult to loot a sinking ship.
But the English – or this particular command, at least – either knew we had no treasure aboard or didn’t care – they simply wanted to destroy us. And they were doing a bloody good job of it.
I dragged myself to my feet, felt something warm running down my arm and looked to see blood from a splinter blob to the planks of the deck. With a grimace I reached to tear the wood from my arm and tossed it to the deck, barely registering the pain as I squinted through a fog of powder smoke and lashing rain.

Assassin’s Creed Black Flag, Chapter 22