Escorts run away about one million tiles

[supermini]

Well not really, but they don't just hang back, they run off to who knows where, where they find something else to kill them. While most ranged don't have problem with moving back with the escorts and shooting beams/arrows/fireballs/whatever, it's really tricky keeping them alive with melee if I both have to chase after the escort, block monsters from reaching it, and get rid of the worst of them so that I don't die.

[ZiMMy]

Well not really, but they don't just hang back, they run off to who knows where, where they find something else to kill them. While most ranged don't have problem with moving back with the escorts and shooting beams/arrows/fireballs/whatever, it's really tricky keeping them alive with melee if I both have to chase after the escort, block monsters from reaching it, and get rid of the worst of them so that I don't die.

AFAIR, you can right click on escort and there would be an option to set max range they can go away from you.

[Aerach]

No, the options are 'tell me which direction vaguely' and 'stay still for ~5 turns, but with a cooldown'. No more control than that.

That tethering is used by the Alchemist golem.