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I'm reading the Gaunt's Ghosts (on Sabbat Martyr) series at present, and something came up I was surprised by. Spoilers for those who haven't read them:

There is no such thing as unified 40k lore, each author of their books and even codexes takes slightly different approach. 40k is essentially a sum of the writers' headcanons. In this case, it includes a mandrake that chose to work with chaos.

Its also worth noting that at the Time the book was written, 15 odd years ago, the lore around the dark eldar was rather sparse, they didn't have as much, and I'm pretty sure the "torture others to save themselves" part was a later addition. I'm sure they were just "evul for the lols" at that point in 3rd edition, and certainly not above mercenary work like the mandrake was doing.

Plus, chaos=/= slaneesh. The hiring party in that book was Unaligned I think, so it's not directly working with the enemy.

The forces of Chaos routinely hire Xenos mercenaries to bolster their forces the most common being Kroot and loxatl. They are considered filth and lower than the lowest cultist but they have their uses and can be vital force multipliers if a warlord is running low on human bodies.

xerxeskingofking wrote:
Its also worth noting that at the Time the book was written, 15 odd years ago, the lore around the dark eldar was rather sparse, they didn't have as much, and I'm pretty sure the "torture others to save themselves" part was a later addition. I'm sure they were just "evul for the lols" at that point in 3rd edition, and certainly not above mercenary work like the mandrake was doing.

Plus, chaos=/= slaneesh. The hiring party in that book was Unaligned I think, so it's not directly working with the enemy.

"Torture others to save themselves" was already a thing in 3rd eddition Dark Eldars thouh at that point, Mandrakes weren't literal living shadows, but stealthy and mutated Eldars. They had no magical powers. Dark Eldar were decribed as working often as mercenaries and pirates.

Additionally, as you find out in the book, the Mandrake's motivations are to secure resources for his Cabal. So this is just a temporary alliance of convenience.