The battle of the twelve champions

Afrasiab calls up his armies once more, and Kay Khosrow sends four hosts against Turan. The main one he gives to old Gudarz, with orders to give Piran a last chance, for Piran sheltered Siyavash and never harmed the kings of Iran. Giv carries the message: send the men who had a hand in Siyavash's death to Iran in chains. Otherwise, says Gudarz, there will be no rest and no sleep for him, his mace, the battlefield and Afrasiab. On Afrasiab's orders Piran refuses.

The armies face each other for days. Gudarz holds his men back, though young Bizhan frets. Piran's brother Houman rides out to challenge Rohham, Fariborz and Gudarz in turn, and kills four of the Iranian sentries. At last Bizhan gets leave to answer him, and Giv gives him the mail of Siyavash. After a long single combat Bizhan kills Houman and brings his head and armour to Gudarz. Another of Piran's brothers, Nastihan, leads a dawn raid and dies under Bizhan's mace.

Letters go back and forth. Piran offers lands for peace; Gudarz answers with the blood of Siyavash. Kay Khosrow sends more troops and sets out himself. A pitched battle settles nothing, and Piran proposes that the war be decided by chosen champions. Ten warriors are picked on each side, and the two commanders make an eleventh pair.

Banners on the hill

Between the armies lies a plain with a hill on either side. Gudarz tells his men that whoever brings down his opponent should raise a banner on the Iranian hill, and Piran gives the same order on his. The pairs ride out. Fariborz cuts Kolbad in two. Giv takes Garuy Zereh, the man who beheaded Siyavash, alive. Gorazeh kills Siyamak, Foruhel shoots Zangoleh, Rohham spears Barman, Bizhan kills Ruin, son of Piran, and Hojir kills Sepahram. Zangeh, son of Shavaran, unhorses his man, Gorgin kills Andariman and Barteh cuts down Kohram. One by one the banners go up on the Iranian hill.

Last come the two old commanders. Gudarz's arrow brings down Piran's horse, and Piran, his arm broken, runs up a mountain on foot. Gudarz, weeping at the turn of fortune, begs him to surrender and be taken to the king alive. Piran refuses: men are born to die. He wounds Gudarz in the arm with a thrown dagger, and Gudarz's javelin goes through his mail into his liver. Gudarz, who has lost most of his sons and grandsons in this feud, drinks from the blood and smears it on his face, grieving for Siyavash. He means to cut off the head, but thinks better of it, and sets Piran's banner upright by his body, his head in its shade.

Piran's brothers Lahhak and Farshidvard flee and are hunted down by Gostaham, who is himself badly wounded; Bizhan finds him and brings him back, and Kay Khosrow heals him. When the king reaches the field and sees Piran's face among the dead he weeps, remembering his kindness, and builds him a royal tomb. Garuy Zereh is put to death, and the Turanian army asks for quarter and is spared.

Rokh is the rook of chess, used here for a champion. As the Warners noted, the pairs number eleven; the twelfth combat is Bizhan's fight with Houman. A later story, told by Nizami Aruzi in the twelfth century, has Gudarz's line about his mace and Afrasiab quoted to Sultan Mahmud, who then regretted his treatment of the poet.