Merry in Time
Novelette 11,201 words Recommended by 1 award/anthology source
"Not so very long ago but before you were born, an idle lordling went riding through one of the great forests that sweep across the Isles. You may guess which forest, and which man, but I will not tell you. ... None of the stories his mother had told him of men vanished into the wilderness or returned changed beyond recognition could teach him caution. "
Quasar links out; the story lives on BCS, where the author gets the click.