Tyrian

Tyrian is a character and secondary antagonist of 1981 film Dragonslayer.

History
Tyrian was first seen stood on the gate of Ulrich’s fortress following Valerian’s group. He ridiculed Ulrich’s talent with magic where the sorcerer responded by having Galen tossed him a dagger. Ulrich then convinced Tyrian to stab him with the said dagger to prove his magical powers, even showed him where he need to fatally stabbed him. To the group and Galen’s dismay, Tyrian coldly stabbed the sorcerer to death and nonchalantly left, leaving Hodge and Galen held a burial to cremate their mentor’s body.

Tyrian however, later revealed to be darker than he seemed to be. Upon discovered that the group still press on, due to Galen convinced them that he will fulfill Ulrich’s job, he tried another attempt to demoralized the group. He shot Hodge with an arrow and left him to bleed, but failed as the group not detered by Hodge’s demise. In spite of the failure, Tyrian and his men choose to followed the group and do nothing upon their arrival on Vermithrax’s lair, confident that they will only killed themselves. That was when they saw Galen whom, in spite of his clumsiness in casting spell on the cave, managed to trigger landslide that blocked the dragon’s lair, seemingly defeated her.

Tyrian then report the group’s deed to King Casiodorus, and he was asked to bring the sorcerer’s apprentice before him, an order he(presumably) begrudgingly accept.

During the celebration of the dragon’s presumed defeat, Tyrian interrupted the party held on the village to asked Galen to come with him for the king. Galen at first believes Tyrian comes to killed him like he did on Ulrich and Hodge, and the centurion said he wished to, but choose to do it later due to the king’s order. That’s when Galen demonstrated how magic works, everyone in the court found how clumsy Galen was in using magic, made them questioned his success. The king then revealed that his brother’s effort to stop the dragon was failed, before confiscated the young sorcerer’s amulet and stated it was him who made the lottery to save his and his people’s skin at expense of a number of present virgins. Tyrian then gladly tossed Galen to dungeon to see whether Vermithrax survived his summoned landslide and come for their kingdom.

As the king feared, Vermithrax survived, and stormed her way through the rubble and emerges from its lair with a vengeance. In the confusion, Tyrian notices Galen escaped from his cell, but failed to capture him. Enraged, Tyrian and his men stormed on Valerian and her father Simon the blacksmith’s home. As they found nothing, Tyrian coldly stated that Valerian would join the lottery no matter what and leaves, not knowing that they hid Galen.

During another lottery for next sacrifice, everyone was distracted that Princess Elspeth have rigged the lottery so she alone was chosen as sacrifice as Galen looked for his amulet. The king and Tyrian caught him searching his chamber, but to Tyrian’s dismay, the king choose to spare Galen and returned the amulet to him. Tyrian reluctantly allowed the young sorcerer to leave.

When Galen comes to stop the sacrifice for good, Tyrian has expected him to come. He challenged the sorcerer’s apprentice for a mortal combat. Being more skillful than the hero, Tyrian briefly overpowered Galen. In the ensuing fight, Galen freed Elspeth from her manacles, but instead of saving herself, the princess choose to enter the cave for sacrificing herself. By the time they heard Elspeth’s scream, Galen succesfully speared Tyrian with his enchanted spear that meant to kill Vermithrax, killing him.

Personality
From moment when he nonchalantly killed Ulritch, it's apparent Tyrian was a dark character whom even worse than Vermithrax herself. Pitiless, delusional, and cruel, he believes that sacrificing virgins for the dragon is the best for Urland, and outright opposed those whom disagree with such decision. He was not above killing those whom disagree with virgin sacrifice policy that held in the kingdom for years, even if those people (Valerian's group for example) claim they have best solution in spite of the risks.

In spite of his brutality and willingness to kill those whom opposed him, Tyrian is not a bloodlust killer and at least had standards. Instead of butchering protagonists outright, he only killed Hodge and Ulrich in hopes of demoralizing them in spite of given opportunities to kill them all instead. He also loyal to the king in spite of disagreeing with decision to allow Galen to interrupt the latest sacrifice.

Trivia

 * In TV Tropes, Tyrian's role as second antagonist made him designated as The Dragon. Ironically, the way he died where he was stabbed by Galen with Sicarious Dracorum spear, enchanted weapon meant to kill the dragoness Vermithrax, made him a figurative dragon died at hands of weapon that meant to killed a dragon.