About this book:

Before the first cockcrow, Master Farrier Thomas is already at his anvil—his hands scarred by decades of iron and hoof, his mind sharp with the healer's lore that separates a true horseman from a mere smith. But this dawn brings a summons he cannot refuse: the Lord's prized destrier writhes in a stall, sweating blood, while a hostile Guild Master and a vengeful bailiff circle like wolves, armed with trumped-up charges and hot irons to "cure" the beast with fire. Thomas has until nightfall to save the horse, expose the sabotage, and defend his forge from seizure—all while his apprentice holds the bellows against a village that watches, waits, and wonders if their farrier will return.

In the muddy yards and shadowed stables of a 14th-century manor, every hoofbeat counts. Thomas must read the silent language of a dying warhorse—taste the feed, test the water, trace the poison through gut and grain—while outwitting town bureaucrats who quote charters and guild masters who mistake uniformity for skill. With a boy to protect, a forge to keep burning, and a bailiff's warrant waiting for the slightest misstep, the farrier's race becomes a battle for the soul of rural craft against the crushing weight of monopoly and law.

Rich with the smoke, sweat, and stderr of the medieval smithy, *The Farrier's Longest Day* plunges you into a world where a man's worth is measured by the soundness of the beasts he tends, and where justice is forged not in courts but in the quiet, desperate struggle between a healer's knowledge and the dark that closes in before sunset.