Two hundred years after a nuclear war nearly wipes out humanity, Earth is a desolate wasteland in which people are struggling to survive. Ricker is an assassin who wanders the world, not daring to call any place home. He seeks penance for past deeds as he hunts DeathSpeakers - humans mutated by radiation and the interminable Dark Plague, able to kill a hundred men just by speaking a single word. Mortimer is a DeathSpeaker. Born with his mouth sewn shut with unbreakable wires that will unseal his lips upon the arrival of his tenth year, he has been kidnapped from the only home he has ever...