With tears streaming from his eyes and a heart heavy with anguish, Khosrow Parviz hurried to the chambers of his blinded father, King Hormoz. Prostrating before the fallen monarch, Khosrow poured out his despair, recounting how Bahram Chubin—the very champion Hormoz had once elevated—had turned rogue. Bahram was advancing upon the Nahrawan bridge with an overwhelming army under his glittering dragon banner, acclaiming himself king while the Persian host deserted Khosrow in droves.
Desperate, Khosrow asked if he should flee to the desert clans and rally the Arab cavalry. Hormoz sternly rejected this plan, warning that the Bedouins would offer no true allegiance unless bound by immediate profit, and would readily betray the prince for gold in times of peril. Instead, Hormoz counseled his son to entrust his fate to Yazdan and ride swiftly westward toward Byzantium. He reminded Khosrow that the Roman Caesar commanded vast legions and treasures, and as descendants of Fereydun, the Byzantines shared ancient blood ties with the royal house of Iran.
Khosrow prostrated in gratitude and embraced his father's wisdom. Turning to his maternal uncles, Bandoy and Gostaham, as well as Gardoy, he ordered them to pack their bare essentials and abandon the realm to the usurper. As a dark cloud of dust surged on the horizon and Bahram's dread dragon banner appeared near the Nahrawan crossing, Khosrow and his retinue galloped away toward the western frontier.
As they fled, Khosrow noticed Bandoy and Gostaham slackening their pace. Suspicious, he urged them to ride faster, warning that Bahram was on their heels. Bandoy falsely reassured him, claiming that Bahram intended to enter Ctesiphon only to restore the blind Hormoz to the throne as a puppet king while acting as grand vizier, and would dispatch envoys to Caesar demanding Khosrow's arrest. Surrendering his fate to Divine Providence, Khosrow pressed forward.
Yet treachery burned in the hearts of Bandoy and Gostaham. Turning back under cover of the confusion, the two ruthless noblemen slipped into the royal palace. Unstringing their war-bows, they cast the stout silk cords around the helpless Hormoz's neck and strangled the blind king to death. Thus ended the turbulent reign of Hormoz IV, leaving the ancient throne vacant.
As Bahram's war drums echoed through the city streets, the bloodstained brothers fled the palace and caught up with Khosrow. Seeing their pale faces, the young king immediately divined the horrific crime they had committed. Yet keeping his counsel in the face of imminent peril, Khosrow held his tongue and commanded them to take the desolate desert trails to evade Bahram's pursuing vanguard.