Two Turanian princes, Lahhak and Farshidvard, get clear of a lost battle and ride for home. Gostaham goes after them by himself, without orders, because they will come back with an army if they arrive.

He catches them. He also very nearly dies of it, and the poem stays with the aftermath longer than with the fight: the search party, the wounds, the slow business of getting a man like that home alive.