The Kakatiyas had been forced into tribute twice before. Delhi armies under the Khalji dynasty besieged Warangal in 1310 and again in 1318, each time extracting enormous wealth and promises of annual payment. But when the Khalji dynasty collapsed in 1320 amid court intrigue and assassination, Prataparudra saw his opportunity. He stopped sending tribute. The new sultan, Ghiyath al-Din Tughluq, was not inclined to let a tributary kingdom slip away. He sent his son Ulugh Khan -- later known as Muhammad bin Tughluq, one of the most controversial rulers in Indian history -- south with an army to collect what was owed. What Ulugh Khan wanted, however, was more than tribute. He was determined to annex Warangal outright, refusing Prataparudra's early offers of negotiation. This ambition would cost him dearly before it was fulfilled.

Ulugh Khan's first assault on Warangal began with a methodical plundering of Kakatiya territory as his army advanced south. At the capital, he settled into a siege that dragged on for six months. The fort held firm. Letters arrived from Delhi, with Ghiyath al-Din expressing displeasure at the slow progress. It was at this moment that Ubaid made his prediction and, when it failed, his lie. The Moroccan traveler Ibn Battuta later offered a more cynical explanation: that Ulugh Khan himself ordered the false rumor, hoping the army chiefs would rally behind him as the new sultan. If so, it backfired catastrophically. The amirs rebelled, not in support of Ulugh Khan but against him, and a section of the army began retreating. The Kakatiyas seized the moment. Prataparudra's forces stormed out of the fort, plundered the invaders' camp, and pursued the fleeing Delhi army all the way to Kotagiri before Abu Riza's contingent rescued Ulugh Khan. He retreated to Devagiri, humiliated.

Prataparudra's victory was real, but his response to it was ruinous. Convinced that Delhi would not return, he celebrated with a lavish feast that exhausted the fort's grain stores -- the very reserves that would be needed to endure another siege. He allowed his soldiers to return to their farms and families, standing down the military force that had just proven it could hold Warangal's walls. It was a miscalculation born of relief rather than strategy, and it would prove fatal. In Delhi, Ghiyath al-Din was anything but finished. He punished the rebels harshly, sent reinforcements to Devagiri, and ordered his son to try again. Within four months of his retreat, Ulugh Khan was marching south once more, this time capturing enemy forts along the route -- Badrikot, possibly modern Bidar, and then Bodhan, which fell after a siege of just three to four days.

The second siege followed the same pattern as every assault on Warangal: the outer mud fort fell first, then the army surrounded the inner stone citadel. But this time, the granary was empty and the garrison was depleted. The siege lasted five months, a testament to the defenders' resolve even under desperate conditions. Eventually, starvation forced what military force could not. Prataparudra opened the gates. The invaders poured through, ransacking houses and destroying public buildings in a city that had been the cultural and political heart of the eastern Deccan. Ulugh Khan sent Prataparudra and his family under escort toward Delhi, guarded by his lieutenants Qadir Khan and Khawaja Haji. The Kakatiya king never arrived. On the banks of the Narmada River, according to most accounts, Prataparudra took his own life rather than face the humiliation of being paraded before the Delhi court. With his death, over two centuries of Kakatiya rule came to an end, and the Telugu lands of the Deccan passed under the control of the Tughluq dynasty.