George RR Martin releases a chapter from 'Winds of Winter', the next book in the 'Game of Thrones' series

Game Of Thones has taken the world by storm in every sense of the word, with the book series it's based on 'A Song Of Ice And Fire', the hit HBO television show, all the tie-in merchandise and much more. But while fans of the TV show might be get their fix of all things Westeros in a few days with the upcoming fourth season, there are those that have to wait for a long long while before they will be satisfied.

The fans that have read the books will have to wait, and have been waiting for George RR Martin to finish the next chapter in ASOIAF, 'The Winds of Winter'.

However, Martin decided that he should give his fans a little taste of what's to come, by releasing an entire chapter from 'The Winds of Winter'.

Along with the release of the chapter, Martin wrote that "the new chapter is actually an old chapter." The chapter is entitled 'Mercy', and is named after a new point of view character of the same name.

"But no, it's not one I've published or posted before, and I don't even think I've read it at a con (could be wrong there, I've done readings at so many cons, it all tends to blur together)," he added. "So it's new in that it is material that no one but my editors (well, and Parris, and David and Dan, and a few others) have ever seen before, but it's old in that it was written a long time ago, predating any of the samples that you have seen. The first draft was, at any rate. I've rewritten it a dozen times since then."

Here is an excerpt from the chapter.

'Mercy passed an old man with a lantern walking the other way, and envied him his light. The street was so gloomy she could scarcely see where she was stepping. In the humbler parts of the city, the houses, shops, and warehouses crowded together, leaning on each other like drunken lovers, their upper stories so close that you could step from one balcony to the next. The streets below became dark tunnels where every footfall echoed. The small canals were even more hazardous, since many of the houses that lined them had privies jutting out over the water. Izembaro loved to give the Sealord’s speech from The Merchant’s Melancholy Daughter, about how “here the last Titan yet stands, astride the stony shoulders of his brothers,” but Mercy preferred the scene where the fat merchant shat on the Sealord’s head as he passed underneath in his gold-and-purple barge. Only in Braavos could something like that happen, it was said, and only in Braavos would Sealord and sailor alike howl with laughter to see it.

The Gate stood close by the edge of Drowned Town, between the Outer Harbor and the Purple Harbor. An old warehouse had burnt there and the ground was sinking a little more each year, so the land came cheap. Atop the flooded stone foundation of the warehouse, Izembaro raised his cavernous playhall. The Dome and the Blue Lantern might enjoy more fashionable environs, he told his mummers, but here between the harbors they would never lack for sailors and whores to fill their pit. The Ship was close by, still pulling handsome crowds to the quay where she had been moored for twenty years, he said, and the Gate would flourish too.'

The entire chapter can be found on Martin's blog.

The book doesn't have a release date as yet because Martin is still in the midst of writing it.

The fourth season of the HBO show based on the series will premiere on April 6. 

Also View - A 25 minute refresher course before the start of 'Game Of Thrones'